If you would turn over to Ephesians
chapter 1 once again And I want to continue on from last week Ephesians chapter 1 and let's
read verses 11 through 14 In whom also we have obtained
an inheritance of being predestinated according to the purpose of him
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will,
that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted
in Christ, in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Whom also after that
ye believed ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise Which
is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession unto the praise of his glory Now I started last
week and basically going to continue on in whom in him Whenever Paul's
writing in whom here he's saying in him. There's no question. It's in Christ now Last week
I did talk about that in the dispensation of the fullness
of times Christ is going to gather together in one all things in
him in himself That's going to happen Like I said, I don't know
what's going to happen next week. I don't know what's going to
happen tomorrow. I'm not sure about this afternoon. I think
a nap is in my future. But other than that, and sometimes
that doesn't work out, but other than that, I don't know what's
going to happen. But I do know this is going to
happen. The apostle to the Gentiles has
wrote this down for us. Jesus Christ is going to gather
together all things that pertain to him in one. again He is going to reunite and there
will be unity There will be we've got it guaranteed now if you
notice It's kind of a strange thing, but this is the way the
Apostle Paul wrote it At the beginning of the chapter we deal
with things from before the foundation of the world He has chosen us before the foundation. In verse five it says he's predestinated
us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, but
to the praise of his glory. And we have redemption through
his blood. All those things are in the past.
Then he comes to having made known unto us the mystery of
his will, that's the present. Then we have verse 10. That's
the future, although it is happening now. Jesus Christ is gathering
his children together. But there is going to be that
final gathering in the future. But now he comes back here in
verse 11 to this present time. This is where we are right now.
If you believe Christ, we are in whom? Right now. In whom also we have obtained
an inheritance Right now right now If you know
Christ if you've been brought to Christ if you are in Christ
if you are in him We are heirs of God right now and joint heirs
with Jesus Christ And the reason they use that word is because
we do have an inheritance. There's something more coming
for the child of God, for the son of God, for the daughter
of God. There's something more coming. That's what he says in
verse 10. There's going to be this gathering together. There's
going to be the redemption of the body. There's going to be
this mortal putting on immortality. This corruption is going to be
made incorruptible. We have that promise, that inheritance
to look forward to now. If all we have is this world,
what Paul said, we are of all men most miserable. This is not
all we have. Even though what we have now
is glorious, Him is true in him We have an inheritance Undefiled
that fadeth not away Reserved in heaven for you Christians
believers should be happy people Paul could you get me a bottle
of water I forgot And I'm already getting dry Now, I don't want anybody to
be, thank you, sir, dismayed or apprehensive about
where it says, we have obtained an inheritance. That's the way it's translated.
That's what it means. But in the Greek, that is a passive
verb. Obtained is a passive word. You
didn't go and get yourself an inheritance. It is given to you.
Just like if someone dies and leaves you something in their
will, you inherited it. You didn't do nothing for it.
You didn't earn it. It wasn't yours to start with. Somebody gave
it to you. That's how we have obtained an
inheritance. We do have it. But we were passive
in the getting of an inheritance. Because actually, those three
words, obtained in inheritance, is translated from one of them
long Greek words. And it means to a lot. It means to assign an inheritance. We have been assigned an inheritance. In whom? In Christ. It's in Christ. It's all in Christ. And just in case you weren't
sure about that, being predestinated according to the purpose of him
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
Now that predestinated is active, but that's not us. We're passive. He's active. That's the way the salvation
of God works. He's active, we're passive. Now there will be actions on
our part as it comes down to it here later. But as far as
the salvation is concerned, as far as the inheritance is concerned,
even what's coming, we're passive. It's his actions, it's in whom
we have obtained an inheritance. We did nothing in obtaining an
inheritance that we were predestinated unto. And we were passive, did
nothing in being predestinated. Some people can't handle that.
But this is the way Christ works. It's the work of God. It's in
whom. It's all in him. Verse 12 that we should be to
the praise of the of his glory who first trusted in Christ that That's a word as a conjunction
that means here's a conclusion. Here's what this is leading up
to We've obtained an inheritance
we've been predestinated according to the purpose of him who who
worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that
we should be to the praise of his glory. I just listened to
a message coming up the road, a man talking about this. That's
that first question in the Westminster Catechism, Walter? I think it
is. What is the chief end of man?
To glorify God. Now, it is to your benefit you
obtain this inheritance That is beneficial to you personally
But there is an overall purpose and the overall purpose is after
the counsel of his will and to the praise of him to the praise
of the glory of God We do talk about and we do mean that salvation
is personal to each and every individual But salvation as a
whole is to glorify God. And salvation individually is
to glorify God. It's to the praise, to the honor
of His grace. Why? It's His work. It's in Him. It's in whom? It's in Christ. He's the one
that did all the work. And our obtaining of anything
is always, if you check it, in salvation, is passive. And every
time you see a verb connected with what Christ did, and Christ's
work, and the Father's work, and the Spirit's work, you'll
see that verb is active. And usually it's indicative,
it means it's a fact. there's no question about it
because the work is his and he's done it and he's doing it and
he shall do it to the praise and the honor and the glory of
his grace to the praise of him that there should be no boasting
now it's not God that shouldn't boast it's us and we will That's why we have
to be told not to. But there are people around,
and we're surrounded by them. Walter just drove past the open
door of Free Will Baptist Church. Heresy's right on the window. It's on the sign, right outside. No, no. It's His work. It's not the work of our will.
He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. Therein
lies perfection and nowhere else. Therein lies salvation and nowhere
else. Why? To the praise and to the
honor. The praise of His glory. His
glory. His glory is what matters, not
ours. We don't have any glory. Anytime you want to talk about
sin, you can include us in. Anytime you want to talk about
glory, you better leave us out. Except in Him. In Him we do have
glory. In whom we do. And we are to
the praise of His glory. Present, active, tense. We are. Literally, it means that
we be. That's bad English, that's why
they didn't write it that way. We exist. Our existence is to
the praise of His glory. that he has saved us from being
dead in trespasses and sins, and that we exist in his presence. God acknowledges us in Christ
only, but he acknowledges us, our existence. We are not as
the small dust of the balance now in him. In him. We're nothing in and of ourselves
but flesh. But in Him, we have it all. We're going to be gathered together
in one at that end, in unity. Again, we were with Him, in Him,
before the foundation of the world. The Father, the Son, and
the Spirit were all united. And we were there in Him, and
at the end, It's going to be exactly the same. Those that
were in Him before the foundation of the world are going to be
in Him at the end. Every single one. Because why? That's the counsel of His will. That's what He told us. And it's
going to be to the praise of His glory. We are His workmanship. Paul's
going to say that next chapter, and I'll skip to it. That's why we're to the praise
of his glory. We're his workmanship. It's he that made us, not we
ourselves. God, I like that. I am not a very good carpenter. I can use screws and nails. And most of the time I can use
a saw without cutting anything other than what I mean to cut.
Occasionally I cut extra things like the table or the saw horse. But his workmanship is perfect. His workmanship is to the praise
of his glory. And we are his workmanship. He's made us to the praise of
His glory. In whom? In Him. And we exist for the glory of
God in Christ. Verse 13, in whom ye Also trusted
after that you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation
In whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that holy
spirit of promise I? Like this you got one verse you
got two in homes Now the first thing I do want
to point out is this word trusted is italicized And it's added
actually in by the translators And to be perfectly honest, I
like it better outside. Young's literal translation puts
it this way. It says, in whom ye also, having
heard the word of faith, the good news of your salvation,
in whom also having believed, ye were sealed. Because they
added this in, in whom ye also trusted. Well, Paul gets to that.
You believed. But it's not in this first little
part. Because I want to tell you something, in whom is where
you heard the word of truth. It's not in whom you trusted,
although you did trust. But if you've heard the word
of truth, and that's the word logos there, that generally has
a tendency to point to Christ. If you've heard the word of truth,
it's because you're in whom. and no other reason. Because the gospel was preached
to them as well as unto us. That's what it says. But it did
not profit them. And then he tells you why. Not
being mixed with faith in them that heard it. If you're not
in whom, you're not going to hear the word of truth. That's
the bottom line. And if you are in whom, you will
hear the word of truth. The gospel of your salvation. That Jesus Christ has paid all
of the debt. That he was made to be sin who
knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. That in him stuff shows up everywhere.
Because everything is in him of any value. Wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption, he's that for us. God made him wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification. To us. For us. You heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation. And that word heard is active.
We do actively hear. Now, you will only actively hear
after somebody gives you ears that hear. What did Stephen tell those Jews?
Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You do always resist the Holy
Ghost, even as your fathers did, so do ye. If your ears are uncircumcised,
you're not going to hear the word of truth. That's the way
it is. That's the way it is. How can
you believe in him in whom you've not heard? You are going to hear. You will hear. God will send
you a person to tell you the gospel. Whether it's a fellow in person,
could be Henry Mahan on TV 30 years ago. Been there, done that. I heard
the word of truth from Henry Mahan 30 years ago on the television. It's hard to hear the word of
truth on television today. Let's just put it that way. There's a couple, but usually
they're on when I'm here. There is so much error, so much
that is not the word of truth. That is not the gospel of your
salvation. See, Jesus doing most of it doesn't
help me any. Because I can't do anything. And he'll bring you to the place
where you know you can't do anything. So God doing most of it is of
no help. thou God of my salvation my Redeemer
from all sins I Like that song at least that
verse of it Because if he's not the God of your salvation, he's
not your God at all And if he's not the God of all
your salvation You got no hope Because you are without strength,
dead in trespasses and sin, in the world, if you're not in whom? But we do hear, and the good news of your salvation
is also in whom? Now, it says, And I had a right round of stuff about that.
I've been mulling on this, Walter, all week. And I know exactly what Ted James
means, because I was halfway between thinking and a stupor
at times. In whom also after that ye believed,
ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. You will not
believe what is written down in places about that part of
that verse of Scripture. and what people say about it. Because you are sealed. And it does say, after you believe. And that believe, that's one
of the active places too. You're hearing is active, when
he gives you ears, and you believe in is active. Now it is that
word faith, faithing, which we don't have a verb for, verb form
of faith, the noun, And it is directly derived from the faith
that God gives, which Paul's going to teach later. But we do believe. And after
that, you're sealed. And man, I'm telling you, people
went all over the place with this thing. You would not believe. I don't have time to go into
it. But they were here. They were
there. There were second helpings. There was higher living. There's all kind of stuff. But
what I want to try and lay it out just as plain as I can and
the way I think God has taught me. I'm going to tell you something,
and we've said it here a lot of times. Things happen and things
change after God gives you life. Okay? You start to see. And sometimes the first thing
you see is that you realize you're surrounded by darkness. And I
said it a few weeks ago, and I meant it. It is a great blessing
to be able to recognize that you are surrounded by darkness.
Because you've always been surrounded by darkness. You were darkness.
But you didn't know it. That's one of the first things.
Some of the first things I remember, Walter, that God taught me is
that I may not know what's right, but I know that's wrong. Now,
I was in a Catholic church. So it wasn't all that hard to
point out stuff to me. There was a time when a fellow
stood up, and he said, if you did this, and I still, to this
day, I can't remember what he was even talking about. He said
to me, and he said to the congregation, if you did that, you might be
a good Christian, but you wouldn't be a good Catholic. And I didn't know much, but I
knew enough that, well, Christians are these people in the Bible.
And I was a good Catholic, and I wasn't worth anything. It's not hard to be a good Catholic.
You just got to show up on Sunday and eat the cookie, have the
wafer, and show up on the holy days of obligation. That's because
you're obligated to show up, and my mother would remind me
if I had forgotten. But anyhow, I got up. Right after
he said that, and I pondered it for just a second or two,
I got up and I left. I didn't know exactly what was
right, but I knew that was wrong. And that's where you start. And there
is such a thing as described as the spirit of bondage to fear
and the spirit of adoption. I'm here to tell you it's the
same spirit. It's the Holy Spirit of God. You change when God gives
you life. When the spirit gives you life
and comes in, you start seeing things that you never saw before.
You start hearing and understanding things you never saw before.
But I'm going to tell you something else. After you believe, things
change even more. Because then, his spirit bears
witness with our spirit. that we are the children of God.
And I think that's the ceiling Paul's talking about here. And
it doesn't happen until after you believe. I still remember
laying on that couch being miserable thinking I might be going to
hell and somebody else being tickled to death that I was that
miserable. Now I understand it now, but it didn't help me feel
any better at the time. That why are you rejoicing because
I'm miserable? I didn't see being miserable
as a good thing, but it is. It is. In whom? In him. He may have to bring you down,
but he's going to bring you down. He's going to bring you down.
He has to. Because no matter what your opinion of yourself,
it's too high. I'm sorry, I'm not talking about
self-esteem here, even though self-esteem is involved. In Christ, there is no self-esteem. In Christ, there is Christ-esteem. But, after that, I believe the
whole world was open to me. It had never been open before. I believed Him. And things changed. For the better
they changed! It did! And it is still better. The Spirit is in you before you
believe. And the Spirit is in you after
you believe. Things change when you are given life from the Spirit,
and things change after you believe. You are sealed after you believe.
And it doesn't say here if you believe a lot. It just says after you believe,
you're sealed. See, there's some of them that
try to say, well, you know, that may not be everybody. I think
it is. I believe that's what Paul wrote. After you believe, you're sealed
by the Spirit in Him. Which is the earnest of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of
His glory. The Holy Spirit Himself is the
earnest, the pledge of that inheritance that we have. We've obtained
passively. We've obtained it, but the Holy
Spirit in you is the earnest of that pledge. Earl, I remember Earl describing,
talking about earnest money in real estate. Basically what it
comes down to, they call it earnest money. I call it a down payment
because that's what it is. We have something and we have
I don't want to use the word experience, but we have in our
bodies right now the Spirit of God. That's just a taste of what is
to come. That's the earnest, the knowing
Christ that we know Him as now, but one day we're going to know
Him even better. For we shall see him as he is. Guess what? That's part of your inheritance.
There's more coming. And that we have the Holy Spirit
now, and that his spirit bears witness with our spirit that
we are the children of God. That's just the foretaste of
glory to come. It's the earnestness. It's the
pledge. Christ said, I'm going to send
a comforter. He's going to be with you. He's going to be in
you. He's going to take the things
of mine and show them to you. So if you don't see the things
of Him, you don't know the Spirit. And the Spirit don't know you
yet. But if you can take this book,
and if you can hear And I'm not saying my words are all that
great, but if you can see Him in whom we have redemption through
His blood. That's God's work. The Spirit is our earnest until
the redemption of the purchased possession. There is going to
be a final redemption of what Christ purchased. There's going
to be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness.
There's going to be this gathering together in one all things in
Christ. And again, unto the praise of
his glory. That fellow preaching this morning
I listened to, he pointed out three different times in the
first 14 verses does Paul write praise of his glory. I think
that's pretty important then. All of this is done for the praise
of His glory. We are to be to the praise of
His glory. And it ought to be in our minds.
It ought to be in our thoughts. It ought to be in our hearts.
And it needs to be in our actions as best we can. to do things to the praise and
the honor and the glory of Jesus Christ in whom we have everything. Everything we have is in him. That job you got, Paul, whether
they let you work at home or not, you got that from him. The job I got, I got from Him.
And if He takes it away, that'll be from Him. I don't make it
pleasant, that don't make it, but I do know that it works together
to good to them that love God. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches
of His grace. We are rich. in him. We have everything in him. I wrote some things down. I'm
going to finish with this. Everything concerning our salvation
is in him. Everything concerning eternity
is in him. Everything life And that means life on this world
or life in him is in him We are chosen in him as believers. We
are chosen in him. We have our redemption in him.
We are placed as sons in him We are in the household of God
I like saying that and I like it even better thinking I We
are in the household of God in Him. We are members of God's
family, heirs of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ. We're family,
and we can go to Him and say, Abba, Father, thanks to the spirit of adoption,
thanks to that sealing. We are fitly framed in Him. That's
in another chapter. We are builded together in Him. We have an inheritance in Him. We are predestinated in Him. And we are complete in Him. Every good and perfect gift cometh
down from the Father of lights. And every good and perfect gift
that you have is in whom? It's in Him. It's in Christ. We got something to look forward
to today. We got something to look forward to tomorrow. In
Him. We are to rejoice. We are to
be happy because we are blessed in Him. And I hope you are. I hope you are. Our Heavenly
Father, we are thankful again for this time and this place.
But most of all, we are thankful for Him, Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenlies, in Christ,
everything you've given to us and all you are giving to us
today. Thank you, Lord. In Christ's name, amen.