Well, you've heard the gospel
today. Brother Paul certainly was blessed
to bring that to us. And it is a blessed truth that
Christ is everywhere in the scriptures. And I confess that I have not
always had that understanding. And I have often went to exposit
of passage of scripture and had perhaps many thoughts that were
beneficial, but were not really centered particularly and exclusively
on Christ. But the older that I get, the
more that I see that he is in this book from the beginning
to the end, And every passage in this book ultimately brings
us to look at him. And when we are brought anywhere
throughout the scriptures and looking at anything else, as
good and profitable as it might be, it cannot be that which is
the most beneficial, which is to see Christ. Hopefully that
in the few things that I have to say today that we might center
our thoughts there. I want to read a couple of, actually
about four verses at the first of Ephesians and at the last
of Ephesians. The first two verses in Ephesians
1, 1 and 2. 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. Grace be to you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in the
last two verses of chapter six, he says, peace be to the brethren
and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. Grace be with all them that love
our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. Today we hope to be those that
love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. And we do confess
that we love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. But we also confess
that many times we don't feel like we love the Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity. In fact, many times we feel ashamed
to even say those words. And we were discussing this yesterday,
but the Apostle Peter, fell into a situation that every
one of us have fallen into from time to time in our lives. And
he denied the Lord three times. Now keep in mind that this was
Peter who said, Lord, though all men shall depart from you,
not me. You might not can count on these
others, but you can count on me. The Lord loved Peter. He said, Peter, you're gonna deny me three times,
but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. What a glorious
thought it is, as Brother Paul was mentioning there, how the
Lord has borne those afflictions for us. Think of the heartbreak
that was in the Lord who loved Peter, and yet he knew that Peter,
in fact, he directed that Peter's actions would take place. Why
did he do that? Because he loved Peter. And he
would not have Peter to rely upon himself or to consider that
he somehow or other had the power to stand true and firm with Christ
unto the end. And so he taught Peter a valuable
lesson. And Peter's heart was broken. The scripture says, the Lord
looked at him, it says, and as the Lord looked at him, he knew. See, the Lord is pleased. I remember
when I was just a child, there were certain ways that
my mother or my father could look at me, and I knew exactly
what they meant. And it usually wasn't good. And
so when the Lord looked at Peter, he smote him in the heart. Now
the reason that this smoked Peter in the heart is that Peter was
a child of grace. Because there were many that
looked on Christ and Christ looked on them, I'm sure, as they were
in that judgment hall. I mean, he stood right before
Pilate and looked him in the face. Pilate said, are you a
king? He said, you say I'm a king.
He said, for this cause came I into the world to bear witness
of the truth. But that didn't have really any
effect much on Pilate, did it? Because he had no love for the
truth. But those by the grace of God who've been given a love
for the truth, the truth of God smites us in the heart. And so
it is a true thing that while we profess our faith and our
love for Jesus Christ, we often don't find what we feel like
is ample evidence of it in our heart. Now that's a good thing
and that's a bad thing. It's a good thing because it's
ordained by God that it be so. The man who boasts always that
he is faithful, and that he is ever moving upward and he's ever
strong and he's ever has unbounded faith. Such a man as that is
not acquainted with the grace of God. Cannot be. Because while grace is that which
lifts us up, it's also that which teaches us what we are. because
that is as much part of grace as the blessing that we have
when we are able to see Christ and to see Him clearly and to
see the wonders and the joys that can flood our soul and fill
us with such ecstatic feeling that we think we could just fly
off into the heavens. And we can understand that the
Lord is with us in such times as that. But when we're in the
valley of Lodibar, when we're walking in darkness and not in
the light, such times as that is when grace is also at work. Because the Lord does indeed
ordain all of the troubles and all of the doubtings and fears
that come into our mind. Now, doubtings and fear are not
the thing that we delight in. And it's not that place where
the Lord would have us to be. But he uses the doubtings and
the fears to bring us to the place where he'd have us to be. Because when we are weak, that's
when we understand where our strength is. And so may the Lord
give us an understanding of that which the Lord works in us according
to his grace, that it's not always, we're not always going uphill.
As someone said, John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress, but
he could have easily written, called it Pilgrim's Regress.
Because even though the Lord brought Pilgrim to the, desired
in that he had ordained him to come to from before the foundation
of the world, yet there were many byways and problems that
beset him on the way. And many times he was in such
a position as he thought he would perish. I mean, think of Jonah
in the fish's belly. You know, we read that and we
understand, we can see how the Lord used all of those things. He told Jonah to go and preach
in Nineveh. But Jonah had other ideas. And he was pretty convinced that
he wasn't going to Nineveh. But he didn't realize that the
Lord had prepared a passageway for Jonah to get to Nineveh,
and it wasn't aboard any ship that he'd ever been in. And he
certainly, as Jonah paid the fare, the scripture says, of
the passage away from Nineveh, he had no idea what would befall
him. But in the grace of God, the
Lord did not allow Jonah to pursue his course away from him, but
he brought him to the very place that he had set forth for Jonah
to be. When he told Jonah to go to Nineveh,
he already knew how Jonah was getting to Nineveh. So he already
knew the exact conveyance. Jonah assumed he was gonna go,
if he did go, he was going on a ship, but no, he went by way
of the fish's belly. But see, we read that account
and we see all of that and we can understand how the Lord did
that, but Jonah was the one who was in the midst of that. And
when he was in the belly of that fish, he had no idea that he
was ever coming out of that fish alive. I mean, how many people
have you ever known that were swallowed by a fish or any other
animal and came out alive. So he assumed that was his end. I mean, he was in a dark place.
He was facing the end of his life. And yet the grace of God
was never removed from him. He was always in the exact place
that the Lord did. Because you see, the very conveyance
that the Lord used to bring Jonah down to Nineveh, he ordained
as a means to save Jonah. Because Jonah was cast over out
of this ship. I mean, Jonah had faced death
on several occasions, had he not? I mean, when these men,
he told them, he said, look, the Lord had convinced him of
what the problem was. He said, I'm fault here, throw
me over. And so he was in the water, he
expected to drown, did he not? I mean, he figured that was the
end. But you see, the Lord brought a fish that he'd prepared, and
he swallowed up Jonah. And this was not a comfortable
place for Jonah to be. I don't know how it smelled in
the belly of the fish, but I can imagine it wasn't very nice.
And it certainly was a dark place. But the Lord brought Jonah, to
the end of himself and he said salvation is of the Lord. And the scripture says immediately
he was, the fish vomited him out on dry land. Now I don't
know how the fish got up there. I don't know if the fish had
projectile vomit and it blew him up there or if the fish went
right up to the edge or whatever, but however the Lord designed
this fish, it was the perfect way that the Lord had designed
for Jonah. Nothing happened in Jonah's life
that the Lord didn't direct to occur. And so it is that Paul
writes here, Grace be to you and peace from God our Father.
May we understand that the grace of God surrounds his people from
the moment or from before the moment of their conception till
the hour of their death. They cannot escape him. It's
a glorious thing. You know, some people teach that
a man can be in Christ and through some disobedience or some way
he can perish and fall out of Him. But the truth is that those
whom the Lord has set His love upon, He set His love upon from
the beginning to the end. There is no temporary love with
the Lord. A man is either loved by Him
or he's hated by him. No in between. And so Paul writing
here to the Ephesians mentions the fact that he is
an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. He didn't become
an apostle because he sought to be an apostle. He didn't become
an apostle because he studied to be an apostle. He became an
apostle because it was the will of God that it be so. And just
as much so as it was the will of the Lord for Judas to occupy
the place of an apostle for a temporary period. But he was not the apostle
who was that one whom the Lord would have to be one of the 12
apostles. but there had to be a vacancy
made because Paul was not one of those called during the ministry
of the Lord Jesus Christ in the earth. He was not a personal
witness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But the Lord called
him as one out of due time. And Paul continually mentions
that throughout his word because he understood that He was a miracle
of grace, because here he was on the road to Damascus, the
last thing on his mind, far from any thought he ever considered
that he would become a disciple of Jesus Christ. Because he hated
these upstart people who had followed this teaching of Christ.
And he breathed out threatenings and slaughters against them,
but it was according to the will of God. And you know, someone
had mentioned in our conversations yesterday that Paul is an example
of the fact that salvation is not according to the will of
men. Because where did Paul ever exercise any free will? I mean,
he was set against the Lord until the Lord just showed up and told
him what he was to do. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God to the saints, the saints of God. And we all
have heard and know that there are some religious organizations
who call men saints who are special. Well, all of God's people are
special and all of them are saints. And so when he writes to the
saints, he writes to all of God's people. The saints which are
at Ephesus, The Lord has his people of every kindred, tribe,
and tongue in every place that he would have them to be. I don't
know all of them. It would be impossible for me
to ever meet all of them. And it would be folly for me
to step by and set forth the standard by which I might recognize
them as the children of God. Because you could not have ever
recognized Paul as one of the saints of God. How would you
have ever known that he was one chosen of God when he was breathing
out threatenings and slaughters? But yet the Lord held him in
the palm of his hand and loved him no less then than he did
when Paul laid down his life for Christ. To the faithful in
Christ Jesus, sometimes we're that encourages us when we read
of the faithful. And sometimes we recognize that
we're faithful. But then we don't always understand
that, do we? Because we look at ourselves
and we say, man, I'm not faithful. But you know one of the things
that I believe that the Lord put God's people together for,
the reason that he calls us to come together is it's easier
for me to believe that Walter's walking in the faith than it
is to see myself as one. And Walter, he sees me as walking
in the faith, and he might have doubts about himself. But when
the Lord brings us all together, we feed off of the faith that
he has given. to one another, and we are, we
can say we are the faithful, even when we don't feel like
we've been very faithful to Him, to the faithful in Christ Jesus. There's never been a time when
God's people have not been in Christ Jesus. Before we ever
knew Him, He knew us. What a glorious thing. Before
we ever called upon His name, He had called upon Father's name
in our behalf. Even as He prayed for Peter that
his faith fail not, He has prayed for you. To the faithful in Christ Jesus,
grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's a word that we often associate
with election and predestination and the perseverance of the saints
and those things. From a doctrinal standpoint,
we think of grace. We sometimes call ourselves those
who believe in the grace of God. And well it is, that's good.
A good thing, you know. I love the preaching. to hear
the preaching of God's sovereign grace. Nothing that delights
my soul more than to hear Christ lifted up in that which I believe
to be the gospel. But that's not the only manner
in which we have a consideration of grace, because grace is a
personal thing. You see, the grace of God that
hath appeared unto all men. This grace has appeared unto
us. It's not something that we can read about, you know, we
can read the Baptist Confession of Faith and it lays out the
terminology and all of these things and then we can close
that book up and walk away and have no more thought of it. Because
the grace of God that hath appeared to us in Jesus Christ is more
than that. It's something that we cannot
depart from. It's something that is vital
to our very being. We don't just talk about grace
because we like that doctrine, but we talk about that grace
because we rejoice in the one who shows grace. And that's the
blessing that Paul desires when he says, grace be to you. Now
he already knew that grace had been to them, did he not? But
he desired, he prayed, Lord, let that grace be known to them. Let them rejoice in it. Let them
see the wonder of it. I guess more than anything, the
older that I get that strikes me about the grace of God is
the wonder of it. The grace itself is a thing,
but the wonder of grace. That the Lord should love a people
that did not love him. That not only did not love him,
but desired to go contrary to his ways. And yet, his love was
never diminished from the beginning. I mean, he created the world
in order to bring his son into the world to demonstrate the
glory of his grace and the redemption of his people. What a glorious
thing. And of course, the world scoffs
at such an idea as that, because they see all these things that
take place in the world, and they may become enamored with
creation. I mean, when you go through these mountains, of course,
I'm a flatland tourist, or as old Snuffy Smith used to call
them. But when I come here and I see
all these mountains and the grandeur of all this, and the majesty
of this creation is a wondrous thing. But you know, it really
pales. I mean, that's not the thing
that causes us to get up in the morning and to have rejoicing. When we look out and see a beautiful
mountain scene, that might be a beautiful thing that we do
rejoice in, but that which fills our heart with gladness is the
mercy and grace of Almighty God toward us. And this is that which
Paul desired, that these Ephesians And so he begins his letter to
them with this desire, grace be to you and peace from God
our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now some see them
as, see this as being speaking of some separation. between the
Father and the Son. And there is a way in which I
think the scripture sometimes leads us to think in those terms,
but the reality is that the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are
one. I mean, that's what Philip said, Lord, show us the Father
and it will suffice us. And I'm sure that the Lord looked,
not necessarily with a puzzled look, but as we would look upon
him, probably with a puzzled look. And he said, Philip, have
I been so long with you, and you have not known me? He said,
he that has seen me has seen the Father. No man will ever
see God apart from seeing Jesus Christ. I mean, he is the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. And he is that one whom the Father
has sent into the world to declare his glory, to declare his truth. And then he comes to the end
of the book, very similar to the very beginning of the book.
Peace be to the brethren. May there be peace among us.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our peace. And he has given us peace,
not as the world gives peace, but he's given us peace that's
real. It's past his understanding. It's not, how can it be that
in the midst of great trials, which the Lord often is pleased
to bring upon us, that we can have peace? Even in the hour
of death, the Lord gives his people peace. And so it is that
Paul prays that there be peace to the brethren. But may we have
peace one with the other. Because if we are the children
of grace, how can we desire not to be at peace? Paul said as
much as life within you live peaceably with one another. He exhorts us to peace. The Lord
would have us to be people of peace. We're not to be those
that have a vendetta or a warfare or trying to prove some point
with somebody or trying to exalt ourselves. But we're desiring
to exalt Christ. And Christ was a man of peace.
He walked among men as a peaceful man. And he gave us that example. And so if you ever are wondering
whether or not you should show peace towards somebody. Think
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a peaceable man, even
in the face of his enemies. He had no vendetta against them.
He had no personal animosity in that respect towards them. But indeed, he was a man of peace.
Peace be to the brethren. Now we can't really be at peace
with the world, can we? Now that doesn't mean we go out
and have war with them. But we can't have peace with
them, not because we don't desire peace with them. I mean, I don't
know of anybody in the world that I would say I desire not
to have peace with, in the sense of them as a fellow human being.
But we can't have peace with them because they are set at
odds against those things that we believe. And because they
are set against the Christ that we love, we cannot have fellowship
with them. We cannot enter into a peaceful
arrangement with them. And they might consider us to
be at war with them, but we're merely at war. with that which
is against what we desire to see exalted. I mean, a man who
does not desire to exalt Jesus Christ, what fellowship or communion
can I have with him? I can't walk with him. I can't
be with him. It's not a thing that we desire.
So this is, peace be to the brethren whom we are to love. with one
another as ourselves. He says to esteem one another.
Not just like we think of ourselves, but he said esteem one another
above ourselves. A higher level of desire and
love for our brethren than we have for ourselves. Designed
to lift one another up and build one another up in the most holy
faith. To bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law
of Christ. When one brother suffers, we
all suffer. There's a song that was in my
mind there a moment ago that, when each can feel his brother's
sigh, and with him bear apart, when sorrow flows from eye to
eye, and joy from heart to heart. You see, that's the peace. of
God that he's pleased to give to his brethren, that we can
bear one another's burdens. Peace be to the brethren and
love with faith. A love with faith. We love to
see the faith of God's people and our love motivated by the
faith that we have, mutual faith that we share one with the other.
And I love to consider that the brethren are benefited by the
word of God, something that I may share, not that they might even
remember my name or even know who I am, but that they might
be built up in the faith, strengthened in the faith. It's not necessary
for you to remember who said things, but to remember who it
was that they were speaking of that brought you the comfort
that they did at the time they brought it. Because I've heard
multitudes of men that preached down through my lifetime rejoicing
in much of what I've heard. But I hope not to remember them
per se, but to remember that which caused me to rejoice in
what they said. I remember hearing, and I do
remember who said this, it was a message by Henry Mahan, and
he said, he was preaching on blind Bartimaeus, and the title
of his message was The Son Stood Still. And the glory of that
has stayed with me, not so much because of who said it, but because
of the glory that is in the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ as he
went by blind Bartimaeus. And just like in his message
as he likened the sun standing still in the Valley of Agilon
during the days of Joshua. And the scripture says that the
sun stood still and Joshua disconfited the Philistines or whoever it
was he was fighting against. And he said, and this is what
it says in the scripture. And when Jesus came by, the scripture
says, and the son stood still. He stopped. Why did he stop? Because there was a blind man
that he loved. It wasn't a happenstance thing
that he came by the spot where Bartimaeus was. Bartimaeus didn't
pick out the spot where he sat. He thought he did. I mean, if
you'd have asked him, he'd have said, this is the spot that I'm
picking out that I'm gonna be by this roadside. But the Lord
marked out that spot. And the Lord was not amazed when
Bartimaeus cried out to him, because his people shall be willing
in the day of his power. And Bartimaeus had the understanding
that this one who was passing by was the only one who could
help him. Even as Fanny Crosby wrote those
words, pass me not, O gentle Savior. Hear my humble cry, while
on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. With faith from God the Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ, there he mentions it again, that we
might know that the grace and peace of God comes from this
one God whom we love and serve. It's not a divided love, not
in any way set apart. Grace be with all them that love
our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. May we be such a people to love
Christ in sincerity. In sincerity means without pretense. It's without any ulterior motive. We can't help it. See, it's like a dog's love. This might be a crude illustration. But it's like a dog's love for
his master. Or I guess you'd call it love.
Anyway, it's a devotion. I mean, he's there. He's always
there when you, come around and you're waiting on him, you go
to look for him and buddy, he's glad to see you. And so it is
that when a man loves Christ in sincerity, it is at which
it doesn't have to be prompted. So you don't have to prompt the
people of God to love the Lord. I mean, when I was growing up
in the church that I grew up in, they were constantly trying
to get people to love the Lord. Well, you ought to love the Lord.
You need to do this to manifest that you love the Lord. But God's
people don't have to be prompted to love the Lord. They can't
help it. Because of that grace and mercy which comes from Him,
which is that which is insincerity. It's without pretense. It's without
presumption. We don't presume that we have
something but we understand who it is that gives us all the things
that we do have. May the Lord work such a work
in us, draw us to himself, cause us to always be ready to give
to every man that asks us a reason of the hope that is within us.
May he give us such grace and peace. That's my prayer for you,
is that the Lord might cause his grace and peace to rest upon
you. Let's ask the Lord to just close our message here. Father,
I thank you for your kindness, your abundance of mercy, How can it be, Lord, that we
could even call upon thy name, except that you should have singled
us out, that you should have set your love upon us, that you
should have called us by thy grace out of the darkness in
which we gladly dwelt? And Lord, I pray that these words
that we have spoken today, may they be those which would cause
the brethren to Think on Christ and Christ alone. Lord, you have
a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow and every tongue confess. Blessed be thy name,
O Lord. Thank you for bringing us here
today. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.