For them, we are very excited
to meet baby Jack Jack. We're going to be back in Ephesians
today. I remember last week I told you
we're going to finish up this section. We're going to wrap
up verses 11 to 14. I was mistaken. Because this
week we will be in verses 11 to 14 again. I was going through some old
notes and I found this interesting, just this little line that I
had in one of my outlines. I was talking about David. I
said, David is both a type and an anti-type of Christ. David
slays Goliath just as Christ defeats death, hell, and the
grave. That's why David is a type of
Christ. But David is also an anti-type
of Christ. And I'm telling you this because
we should see this in all of the saints of the Old Testament
who performed these great works of God. When they perform works that
are great, when they glorify God, we can see them as a type
of Christ, but at the same time we should recognize that they
also have traits that make them an anti-type of Christ. Things
that we should not see Christ in. So just as David kills Goliath
and Christ defeats death, hell, and the grave, David steals a
married woman and kills her husband and Jesus doesn't. This was the mistake that the
Pharisees made. We've talked about this several
times and last week in particular as we looked at verse 11 and
the contrast with verse 13 is Paul talks first about himself
and the Jews and then later sort of marries these two groups together
under the gospel. We talked about Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses,
these men were to the Jews of that day, to the Jews of this
day, to the Pharisees, they were idols. They worshipped Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. And that is what we want to avoid.
We should recognize that in these men we can see Christ when it
is the work of God that we see performed through them. And when
in these men we see sin, we can see ourselves. I remember there
was this conference that was held up in Charlotte, North Carolina,
and this preacher gets up there and he talks on and on about
David and how, you know, people are always trying to kill him.
And at one point he says, you know, you need Saul. You need
trial in your life. Because if you've got a Saul,
that means you're a David. And then the very next day they
had a preacher. I don't know why they had this guy there.
But at this very same conference, this other preacher stands up
there and says, you're not David. Right? You didn't kill Goliath. You didn't kill death, hell,
and the grave. Jesus did. You're not David. You are the Israelites standing
there being afraid. And this is the wrong sermon
outline. I need to find the right sermon
outline before I really get started. I could preach last week's again.
It's the same text. Let's see. I might have to just
print it again. Well, I'm just going to print
it again. The printer's right behind me. We're very high tech here. I don't have a screen back there
that has the outline up there for me. But here we are. Let's see. Print. All right. It'll be out in 7
to 12 minutes. So we're going to be in Ephesians
again. So I'm going to read this section while I get my stuff
together. Starting in verse 3 of Ephesians
chapter 1. Actually, we'll read the greeting.
It's important. It's the Bible. It is sufficient for equipping
you for every good work. An Apostle of Christ Jesus by
the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful
in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God
our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even
as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, yep this
is the one, See, the problem here is I have the same title
on both outlines because it's the same text. In love, He predestined us for
adoption. We're back in verse 5. He predestined us for adoption
as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His
will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed
us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to
the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, and all
wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will,
according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ, as a
plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things
in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance. Remember, that's Paul talking
about himself and the Jews. In him we have obtained an inheritance,
having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works
all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were
the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
And now he speaks to the Ephesians. In him you also, when you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed
in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is
the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of
it to the praise of His glory. So we're going to focus in now
on verses 13 and 14. Last week we talked about Paul
and the Jews and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So this week we're
going to focus in on verse 13. And in particular, remember Israel
worshipped God through shadows, right? They had the law, which
was a shadow of the things to come. This is what we see in
the letter to the Hebrews. But in Christ, we have the full
revelation of God's redemptive plan, right? Christ is the radiance
of the glory of God. He is the revelation of the plan
that we had for the whole time. And so that's what we're gonna
talk about today. Verse 13, in him also, when you heard. So we're gonna talk about this
phrase, when you heard. Back in September, I did a little
mini series on the means of grace in the local church as part of,
Pastor James was doing a series on the church. And one of the
things we talked about were the means of grace. And one of the
distinctions that I made was that there are salvific means
of grace and there are non-salvific means of grace. And the distinction
there is that when you experience this salvific means of grace,
it is effective, effectual for your salvation. And then these
non-salvific means of grace are those things that you experience
after salvation that help to grow and mature your faith. And so these non-selfific means
of grace, there are many of them. We gather together with the saints
and we listen to the word preached. We take of the Lord's table every
Sunday. We sing together, we pray together. These things that God has established
for us to do together in assembly, they are effective for maturing
our faith, for growing us in our knowledge, growing us in
our love of Christ. But the salvific means of grace
are unique. There is only one of them, and
that is the proclamation of the gospel. We affirm that salvation
is of the Lord. This is what we've been talking
about when we've been speaking of God's election, God's sovereignty. Psalm chapter 3, the psalmist
says that salvation is from the Lord. Your blessing be upon your
people. Paul declares in Romans 1.16,
he says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of
God for salvation for everyone who believes. And so this gospel,
this declaration, these are the means that God has appointed
for the salvation of his people. So people often make the mistake
of saying that, you know, if you affirm God's sovereignty,
if you believe that God saves his people, that God has elected,
predestined those who would be saved, why do you have to share
the gospel? Why does God need you? Why does
God need you to evangelize? It's worth mentioning this objection
because you will hear it. If you proclaim the sovereignty
of God in salvation, people will ask you, why do you need to evangelize? And the reason we do that is
because we recognize that, as Paul tells us there in Romans
1 16, that this evangelism, this proclamation, this declaration,
this is what God has said he is going to use for the salvation
of his people. This is the ordinary means, the
salvific means of grace that God uses to pour out his grace
on his people. He has promised that his word
would not return empty. When you proclaim the gospel,
God is faithful to save his people through it. God has declared the precise
nature of the means of his salvific grace. And so it's entirely inconsistent
to conclude that we don't need to evangelize. And there are
churches that on the surface you might see that they affirm
the sovereignty of God. But when you get into it, you
will find that they do not believe in evangelism. Any church that tells you that
evangelism is unnecessary is a synagogue of Satan. Right? That's the work of the devil.
To stop the proclamation of the gospel, isn't it? So to understand what Paul's
talking about when he says, when you heard, we're going to look
at Romans chapter 10 that I read before we got started. In particular,
we're going to start in verse 12, because verse 12 sort of
gives us a summary of what we talked about last week. These
two sections here in Romans 10 and in Ephesians 1, they really
run pretty parallel. There's a little bit more detail
here in Romans 10, and so I'm doing that thing again where
we let Scripture interpret Scripture. So I'm using Romans 10 here as
a commentary on Ephesians 1. So I'm gonna read verses 12 through
17, and then we're gonna start in verse 12 as we get into it. So Paul writes, starting in verse
12, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord
is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in him in whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are
they to preach unless they are sent, as it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of those who preach the good news? But they have
not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed
what he has heard from us. So faith comes from hearing and
hearing through the word of Christ. So there in verse 12, Paul says,
there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. And this isn't
the first time he's said this in Romans, right? Back in Romans
three, verse nine, what then? Are we Jews any better off? No,
we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are
under sin. All right, Paul spins Romans
chapter two and most of chapter three, sort of going back and
forth, back and forth between Jews and Gentiles, Jews and Greeks,
establishing that they all have the same problem. Right, he lays
out this problem in chapter one, verse 18 through 32. He speaks
of the wickedness of man. And then starting in chapter
two, he speaks of the Gentiles and he speaks of the Jews. And
then he gets here. to chapter 3 verse 9, are the
Jews any better off? No, not at all. And so we've
got the same problem, the wickedness of man, the curse of Adam. And
because we have the same problem, that problem has the same solution. There is no special dispensation
of grace reserved for Israel. There is one dispensation of
grace and it's found in Christ. And only those who are found
in Christ, whose debt has been paid on the cross of Christ,
are those who receive the grace of God. There is no distinction
between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing
his riches on all who call on him, not on those who are descended
from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but on those who call on the
name of Christ. So in verse 13, that's where
he says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be
saved. I'm gonna talk about another
sort of objection or misuse that we see here. The most famous
version of this mistake comes from John 3.16. You've heard
someone use the word whosoever to somehow speak of the universality
of God's grace. Right? For God so loved the world
that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him is often posited that this idea that John
presents that whoever believes in him means that in some way
everyone is able, everyone is capable of believing. that God has given to everyone
just enough grace to make the decision for themselves. But this idea that everyone who
calls upon the name of the Lord is not telling us something about
everyone, it's telling us something about the Lord, is that the Lord
is faithful to fulfill his promises. that the Lord has appointed the
means of salvation. Turn to Ephesians 2. Ephesians
chapter 2 tells us who it is that calls upon the name of the
Lord, starting in verse 1, and you were dead in the trespasses
and sins in which you once walked. following the course of this
world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we
all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the
desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy
because of the great love with which he loved us, even when
we were dead, and our trespasses made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him, and
seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that
in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his
grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace
you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing, it
is the gift of God, not a result of works. so that no one may
boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."
So we have this sort of caricature of salvation in our culture that
God needs your help or God needs you to do something to complete
the work that Christ performed. What Paul establishes here for
us is the promise of God to use the proclamation of the gospel
to save his people. So here in Romans 10, Paul sort
of goes in the reverse order of how this works. He starts
at belief and then works backwards to preaching and then ultimately
to the sending of the preacher. So in verse 14, back in Romans
10, how will they then call on him whom they have not believed? You cannot call on something
you don't believe, right? You cannot call on Christ if
you don't believe in Christ. Not that you would want to. But
some people say they believe in Christ. but they do not call upon Christ.
If you believe a false gospel, you're dialing the wrong number
when you call on Him. If the gospel that you believe
is one of works, you're not calling on Christ, right? So you must believe in the true
Christ in order to call upon Him. You cannot believe in the true
Christ if you have never heard the true Christ. Now, the accessibility
of the Bible that we have makes this a little bit different.
We need to understand this sort of in our context because it's
different from Paul's context, right? Paul's writing to Rome
where, realistically, the gospel of Christ was new. It was, you
know, not everywhere. There was, you know, no scripture
to be read in Rome. And so, the church in Rome had
Romans. That's what they had. And so
Paul's writing to a church in a place where Christ is largely
unknown and the gospel is largely inaccessible. But for us, we
have the Bible. And so that means that even in
a false church, the gospel is accessible to you if you have
a Bible and you read it. And so I don't want to stand
up here and claim that we are the one true church. We are not the one true church
of Claxton or of America. Because the gospel is here. All scripture is breathed out
by God and profitable for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training
in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete and
equipped for every good work. So the gospel is found here in
Scripture, and for those who are elect of God, the Spirit
is faithful to bring the Word alive to them. This is what we
see in John 3, the Spirit blows when and where it wishes. Sitting down and reading your
Bible is sufficient for hearing and knowing the gospel of Christ. In Acts chapter 8 we see an example
of this. We have Philip, he's sent and
he meets this Ethiopian who is reading Isaiah. I'll just read
this section. Now an angel of the Lord, this
is Acts chapter 8 verse 26, an angel of the Lord said to Philip,
rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from
Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. He rose
and went, and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of
Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her
treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning
seated in his chariot. And he was reading the prophet
Isaiah. The spirit said to Philip, go over and join his chariot.
So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet
and asked, do you understand what you are reading? He said,
how can I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to
come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the scripture
he was reading was this, Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
Like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his
mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe
his generation? For his life is taken away from
the earth. The eunuch said to Philip, About whom, I ask you,
does the prophet say this? about himself or about someone
else. Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this
scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they
were going along to the road, they came to some water, and
the eunuch said, See, here is water. What prevents me from
being baptized? He commanded the chariot to stop,
and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch,
and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the
Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him
no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself
in Azotus. And as he passed through, he
preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. So we have this Ethiopian who's
reading from Isaiah chapter 53. That's what I read before we
took the Lord's table last week. So this guy is reading Isaiah,
right? And the gospel is there in Isaiah
53. But just as the saints of the
Old Testament saw the gospel, they heard the promises of God,
they knew the promise of the Messiah, they saw Christ through
this shadow. So Isaiah 53 is one of these
shadows. And if you are blinded by Judaism, you're not going
to see the radiance of Christ in those shadows. So this man
is blinded by Judaism, but by the decree of God, he knows it,
and he reaches out to Philip, who was sent to teach him. So
Philip preaches to him the revelation of the Christ, the one that Isaiah
was speaking of, and his eyes are opened. If all you know is
Judaism and you read scripture from the place of Judaism, all
you're going to get out of it is Judaism, apart from the supernatural
work of God to open your eyes. And the same applies today. Right? Not just to Judaism. Judaism
here is a proxy for any sort of cult or denomination or church
you find yourself in where you are blinded to the true gospel. Right? The gospels of Rome, the
gospels of the evangelical cults, the gospels of the Watchtower
Society, The Church of the Latter-day Saints. All of these things,
all these people have the same Bible. Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses
changed it. But they are blind. They are
blind to the truth of Scripture. And so this preaching is necessary.
This preaching is the ordinary means that God has appointed
for saving his people. It is the way that God has promised,
that God has established for his people to learn and know
the gospel of Christ. Then in verse 15, back in Romans
10 again, in verse 15, how are they to
preach unless they are sent? We don't have people teleporting
around much anymore. Philip was a unique circumstance
that God used to show us something. I'm not aware that God is any
longer in the business of teleporting people with much frequency. And so, it is the responsibility
of the local church to train the sheep to share the good news
as is appropriate. It is the responsibility of your
elders to teach you, to train you, to equip you to share the
gospel in your life. What this does not mean is that
we will be having a street preaching class. Not everyone is called
to stand on the street corner and with loud voice proclaim
the gospel. In our town, it's probably not
even that great of an idea because no one's going to hear you. There's
no one here. So not everyone is called to
be an evangelist in that way, right? Not everyone is called
to stand up here and proclaim the gospel to the sheep. Not
everyone is called to be a vocational evangelist, but It also does not mean preach
the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words. There's that quote that is often
misattributed to Saint Francis of Assisi. Preach the gospel
at all times, and if necessary, use words. Words are always necessary. You can be nice to people. The
idea is that you should be so nice, so kind, so righteous
in your living that people ask you why you're so nice and kind
and righteous. You don't have to tell them.
But the gospel is words. The gospel is the news. The gospel
is the declaration, the proclamation, the words of Christ. If I'm supposed to teach you
about the righteousness of Christ with my actions, without using
words, I'm going to fail. I'm not going to be good enough
at that. But what it does mean is that
as you live your life, opportunities will be placed before you where
you are able to share the gospel. And it might be five seconds,
It might be five minutes, it might be five hours. We don't have to be walking around
telling every single person that we see the gospel in 10, 20 minutes. But there will be opportunities
for you to drop it into conversation, to make it just the subject of
what you talk about with people, And one of our jobs is to train
you, to equip you to be able to do that. And the best way
that we can do that is to make you confident in your knowledge
and your understanding. That's one of the, when I have
sort of taught people, how do I drop the gospel into basic
conversation, everyday conversation? The number one thing I think
that has helped people has been saying, you just need to be sure
what your hope is. It's the same thing that we get
our confidence, our assurance for salvation in. You just need
to be confident, sure of what your hope is in. And then you just tell people
what your hope is. Tell people why you do weird stuff on Sunday
morning, like get up. Now, for some of you men, it
does mean that you are to be trained to preach. The men of the church, some of
you are called to be elders, to be deacons, to be evangelists. And it is, again, the responsibility
of the elders to train you in that, to teach you to do that,
to teach you to teach. Now in verse 16, Paul tells us
that not everyone's going to believe, right? But we knew that,
right? He says, but they have not all
obeyed the gospel. Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed
what he has heard from us? This is a conversation Isaiah
is having with God the Father. And God's telling Isaiah, who's
a prophet, to go and prophesy. He's telling him, this is what
you need to tell the people. And Isaiah's like, they don't want to listen
to me, God. No one listens anymore. And so we know that when we share
the gospel, not everyone is going to listen. Not everyone is going
to receive it. Some people are going to say,
okay, weirdo. But we also know that the gospel
has two purposes, right? The first one we talked about,
the gospel is the means of grace for the salvation of God's people.
It's the thing that God has established to bring about the conversion,
the regeneration, the salvation of his people. But we also know
that the gospel is used to harden the hearts of people, right? God's word never returns void. So when you teach the gospel,
it is either going to be the means that God uses to save his
people, or it is going to further harden the hearts of people against
the Lord. And this is just one of the things
that God has appointed the gospel for. And because of this, because
there is a purpose for the gospel in all people, we are to preach
the gospel indiscriminately. Everyone gets to hear it. Right,
and there are churches out there that will, you know, claim that
in some way, through some method they know who is elect, and then
they can just target their gospel preaching to those people. Right,
that's absolutely ridiculous. We preach the gospel indiscriminately,
and the Lord is faithful to save his people through it. Verse 17, faith comes through
hearing the word of Christ. Faith does not come through seeing
people be nice to you. Faith comes through hearing the
word of Christ. Preach the gospel at all times
with your words because they are necessary. So that is what Paul is talking
about when he says, when you heard, back in Ephesians 1. When you heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation. So moving on, we're gonna talk
about this phrase, the word of truth. The word of truth. Remember, we've talked a lot
about the confidence that we can have in the gospel, right?
Because God is faithful to fulfill his promises, because God has
appointed to save his people in all wisdom and insight, according
to his purpose, we have confidence in the gospel. And here Paul
reiterates this confidence when he calls it the word of truth,
right? The temptation of Satan is to
doubt. The temptation of the devil is for you to doubt the
gospel, for you to find some reason why maybe you don't measure
up. And it's really easy. Once you
have bought into the lie that you need to measure up, it's
really easy to recognize that you don't measure up, right?
Because you don't. So the temptation of Satan is
to doubt this gospel. Remember, the gospel is simple. We've talked about this before.
I don't remember which verse we were in. It's probably multiple
times. The gospel is so simple that a child can understand it. My children can understand the
gospel. Your children can understand
the gospel. It is simple. In Matthew 18, We see at that time the disciples
came to Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven? I bet it was Peter. That was
Peter's idea. Peter came up with that question. Who's the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus calls to him a child
and puts him in the midst of them and says, truly I say to
you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like
this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Right, so if belief in the gospel
requires some lofty, high-level intellectual understanding of
theology, what is Jesus talking about in Matthew 18? Unless you
become like a child. So putting complex intellectual
requirements onto belief in the gospel destroys this faith. It
destroys this childlike faith that Jesus is speaking of in
Matthew 18. Because it makes you doubt. It
makes you doubt the word of truth. Doing so makes you guilty of
the sin described in verses five and six of Matthew 18. Whoever
receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever
causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it
would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around
his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. All right,
the last time I talked about this, Brother Mike liked my analogy,
theological drug dogs. We've got people looking for
mistakes in your doctrine and then pointing at them to cause
you to doubt your salvation. Whoever causes one of these little
ones who believes in me to sin. Jesus isn't actually talking
about actual children here, right? He's talking about the sheep.
He's talking about the children of God, those in the faith, in
the church. He's talking about the person
who has this childlike faith. And there are two ways that children
are made to fear. You have legalism. That's where
you don't measure up. You look at your life, you look
at your works, you look at your sin, you say, I'm not good enough
for God. And you doubt the word of truth. But the testimony of Scripture
is clear. This childlike faith is sufficient for full assurance
in the work of Christ. And we're going to get there
and see why in a minute when we talk about the Spirit and
the seal, the guarantee of our inheritance. So any teaching
about works that causes one with childlike faith to fear that
they have not done enough good works or that their faith alone
is insufficient for full confidence of salvation, destroys this child-like
faith. In fact, that section of notes that
I was reading through where I found that funny thing I said about
David and Jesus, it came from one of my sermons in Titus, and
Titus actually tells me how I am supposed to exhort you to good
works. I'm thinking about it just now, so I'm gonna go and
find it because It's relevant. Let's see. I don't remember if it was in Titus
1 or Titus 2. I'll just preach about it next
week. Because it'll be relevant next week, too. This teaching about legalism
causes us to fear damnation. It causes us to fear the wrath
of God, the wrath of God that Christ paid for, the wrath of
God that Christ endured on the cross for his people. If that is your teaching that
causes the children of God to fear, then it would be better
for you to be drowned in the sea. Now, what I was talking
about with this simple gospel, this idea of putting these complex
intellectual ideas as requirements for faith, is this other way
in which children are caused to fear, and that's through suspicion,
right? This doctrinal suspicion, these
theological drug dogs who are going around sniffing your back
pocket. Just as legalism places a burden
of works, of performance, of behavior upon you, The suspicion about your doctrine
places a burden of knowledge, a burden of study upon you, a
burden of artificial requirements created by wickedness that cause
you to fear. These people are suspicious and
in their hearts they deny Christ by denying that your childlike
faith is sufficient. We're not the heresy police.
We're not coming to get you. We should not be sniffing out
theological errors. We should not be putting these
intellectual requirements on faith and causing children to
fear. Now, there is a place for correction, right? 2 Timothy
3, verses 16 and 17. Scripture is sufficient for correction. We are going to make mistakes
and we are going to be wrong sometimes. I've certainly been
wrong before. I've probably been wrong in this
sermon at least once. We're going to make mistakes.
So how do we deal with it? We point fingers and accuse and
tell our friends, watch out. Right? No. We say, okay, what
does scripture say about this? And we work through this together
in love because we love each other. And as long as we love each other,
we keep working through it. We can keep talking about it.
We can keep discussing it as long as we love each other. We
can stay together, stay together in unity because we have one
faith, one gospel, one word. And sometimes we're gonna disagree
on stuff and it's okay to do that. But the gospel itself is simple,
so simple that a child can understand it. Back to Ephesians. In him you also, when you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, believed in
him. So it's common to see biblical
authors use simple phrases like this to describe bigger things
than is immediately evident. When they say, believe in him,
when Paul writes, you believed in him, he's saying something
specific. But this phrase has been taken
sort of in our culture, in evangelical cults, to mean anything from
believing that Jesus existed in some way, all the way to the
other end, if you disagree with me, you are lost. Right? That's what we see with these
people who are suspicious of your doctrine. If you disagree
with me, you're not my brother. But there are also those out
there who take this idea that as long as you believe a little
bit in Jesus, at least that he was a person and existed, that's
good enough. But no, what Paul is talking
about here when he says believed in him, he's talking about this
whole gospel that he has been talking about the whole time.
Believed in him is shorthand for the person and the work of
Christ that we have been learning about through Paul's instructions
so far. So when he says, you believed in him, he means you
believed the things that I said in verses three through 10. You
believed the gospel of Christ. You believed the work that he
performed. And finally, Paul goes on and
he says, believed in him, you were sealed with the promised
Holy Spirit. who is the guarantee of our inheritance
until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. Now there's two distinct works
of the Holy Spirit going on here. There's two things, two different
things that the Holy Spirit does that we want to talk about. First
is the regeneration of the heart of man. This is what we see in
John chapter 3. Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus
at their little secret agent meeting in the middle of the
night. Because remember, Nicodemus couldn't be seen with Jesus.
Nicodemus, teacher of all Israel, he meets Jesus at night so nobody
knows that he's meeting this Jesus guy. John chapter 3. Now there was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The man came to Jesus by
night and said to him, Rabbi, We know that you are a teacher
come from God. For no one can do these signs that you do unless
God is with him." I'm not sure if Nicodemus was speaking for
himself there, or for the Pharisees in general, or if he was lying
or not. I'm going to be honest, I don't know where Nicodemus
is really coming from here. Jesus answered him, "'Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus asks the famous,
silly question, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he
enter in a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus
answered, totally deflects the question. Truly, truly, I say
to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not
marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind
blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do
not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit. And then I'll read through verse
10, because it's my favorite thing Jesus says in this. Nicodemus
said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered him, are you
the teacher of Israel? And so Jesus tells us there that
the spirit blows when and where it wishes. And what he's talking
about there is this new birth, this regeneration, the work of
the spirit to bring you to life, to open your eyes, to allow you
to hear the words of Christ. Right? Because you were dead.
Right? There's nothing you could do. You were dead, and dead people
don't make themselves alive. Right? That's the mistake of
the evangelical cults. That's the heresy that says that
everyone's got enough grace that they can act on it on their own.
No, you were dead. You didn't do anything. You were
dead. In the ground. Buried. Dead. The Spirit brings you to life. The Spirit brings life to your
flesh. The other thing that the Spirit
does here is that it establishes this faith that leads to life. This is where Paul talks about
the seal. Back to Ephesians 1. I've got all these little things
in here. I really should put one in Ephesians 1. In him you were sealed with the
promised Holy Spirit. So what is a seal? What is he
talking about here? He's talking about this thing that you put on a letter
that guarantees the authenticity of the message. The king's seal
established the authority and the validity of some correspondence. This seal distinguishes the true
and the authoritative with the false and the transient. It is
this seal, this work of the Spirit, that gives the believer confidence
in the things that cannot be rationalized. It establishes
the work of faith. This work of the Spirit is the
thing that guarantees that your faith is true and authentic.
This work of the Spirit is the thing that distinguishes your
faith with a faith, a belief that is transient, that is false,
that is fleeting. And it is the thing that gives
you confidence in things that cannot be rationalized. Remember
when we talked about Peter and how he tries to rationalize got
Jesus' selection of the disciples, right? There are things that,
I mean, there are things that I've said to you that don't make
any sense, right? We read scripture and there are
things in here that don't make any sense to our fleshly brains,
right? There are things that don't make
logical sense. And of course, Paul anticipates
this when he gives us his instruction to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians
1, verse 18, the word of the cross is folly. There it is,
the gospel is foolishness. For the word of the cross is
folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved
is the power of God. It is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning
I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this
age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For
since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through
wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to
save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks
seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block
to Jews and folly to Gentiles. But to those who are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
of God. For the foolishness of God is
wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. It doesn't make sense that God
would die for us. Doesn't make any sense, right?
This is what Peter was doing. Remember, Jesus is talking to
this rich young ruler, and Jesus is like, all right, did you keep
the law? And the guy's like, yeah, all of it, whole thing.
I mean, he was lying, but he said it. I kept the whole thing.
And Jesus says, OK, go sell everything you have. Give it to the poor
and come and follow me. And the dude leaves really sad because
he was super rich. And then Peter said, we left our jobs. We sold everything we had. What
did we get? Peter tries to rationalize the
work of God in him. Peter tries to point to the works
of his flesh as the reason that God chose him. He gets it backwards,
right? God chose Peter and Peter obeyed. The faith of Peter was the gift
of God. The work of Peter in leaving his net was the gift
of God, the good work prepared beforehand for Peter. It doesn't make sense. that we
were elect of God, right? There was nothing we could
do to earn it. There was no thing in us that God looked upon and
said, yes, that's what I want on my team. These works of the flesh, these
salvation by works. Judaism, right? That's what Jesus
deals with in the gospels, right? The Pharisees, Judaism. Roman Catholicism, easy-believe-ism,
sinner's prayer-ism, baptismal regeneration-ism, as long as
you are sincere-ism. That's one of my favorites. As
long as you are sincere, it doesn't really matter what you believe,
as long as you're sincere about it. These are all attempts to
rationalize the work of God in the hearts of men, because surely
there's something you must do Surely God requires something
of us. Because it doesn't make sense
that it would be free. Jesus, we left our jobs and our
families to follow you. What do we get? If your God does
anything less than everything for salvation, then your God
has done nothing. Because he's not real. You made
him up. We cannot rationalize God's work
in us because there's nothing we could ever bring to the table. But his grace is free. It is found in the work of Christ
in dying for his people, and it only makes sense if the Holy
Spirit has granted it to you to believe it, to cling to it
as your only hope, your only peace, and your only comfort.
in life and in death. This is the gospel, that you
are not your own, that you belong, body and soul and in life and
in death, to the faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. Because He has
paid for your sins with His blood. And He has set you free from
the tyranny of the devil, the chains of your flesh, the curse
of your earthly father, Adam. Not just that, but he watches
over you in such a way that not a hair can fall from your head
without the will of his father, your father. That all things in this life
must, not that they might, not that they can, not that you hope,
not if you cooperate, all things work together for your salvation. because you belong to him. You
have been given to Christ as a bride by his Holy Spirit who assures
you of eternal life and empowers you to live for him until your
death when you will enjoy eternal intimacy and communion with him
in the presence of God for all eternity. This is the gospel. This is the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation, the guarantee of your inheritance.
This is the work of Christ. The guarantee of our inheritance
until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. Then Paul says in verse 15 of
Ephesians 1, for this reason, for this gospel, because I have
heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all
the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you. remembering
you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation
in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened,
that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.
What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and
what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe,
according to the working of his great might, that he worked in
Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his
right hand in the heavenly places. far above all rule and authority
and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not
only in this age, but also in the age to come. And he put all
things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to
the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills
all in all. Let's pray and then we're gonna
take the table. God, we thank you for this word
of truth, the guarantee of our inheritance, and we thank you
for this seal, this work of the Holy Spirit in not only bringing
life to our dead bodies, but in establishing our faith, establishing
our confidence. And now as we take of your table,
Give us grace for the strengthening of our faith as we remember that
work. As we remember the death of Christ. And as we remember that death
could not contain him. That the same power that brought
Jesus back from the grave is the one that gives us life. We
pray these things in the name of Christ, amen.