He has not fallen from grace.
He is taking some well-earned and well-needed rest, a break
from teaching. And this is good for me, good
practice, good training. The Bass Pro Shop in Pooler has
a new department next to the fisherman section called the
Fishers of Men section. And they had a buy one, get two
free special on sermons. So I'm here for my third sermon
from the Bass Pro Shop. No, I'm kidding. That is a thing
you can do, though. You can go online and buy a sermon
series, and they send you all the PowerPoint slides, they send
you all the outlines, and you don't really even have to study.
That is not what I have done. I've done my best to be faithful
to Scripture and to the teachings of Paul the Apostle out of Ephesians. And because of that, I will be
repeating myself again, as I did last week, because Paul continues
to teach us much of the same thing in different ways and in
different words. In fact, the verses I'll be covering
today, verses 8 and 9, are the middle two verses of a four-verse
long sentence in our Bible here. And so to review where we have
been, remember in verse 6, well the end of verse 5, Paul says,
And as we looked at this phrase last week, I took us to the image
of Jesus praying on the Mount of Olives. cries out in agony. And the Apostle
records our Savior sweating droplets of blood, being so emotionally
stressed that the blood vessels in his face burst and blood poured
from his skin. And the point I wanted you to
get out of that was that it's OK to not be OK sometimes. It is okay. It is expected for
this life to be hard. It is expected for us to experience
trials and tribulations. And our creator has built our
bodies to have natural physiological responses to those stressors
such as sweating blood. such as feeling so sick that
you want to throw up, among other things. Stress, anxiety,
depression, these are influenced by physiological phenomena that
are outside of the control of our will. I wanted you to understand
that experiencing these things is not evidence of a lack of
faith. It is not evidence of giving up on God, right? Because our Savior experienced
these things and we wouldn't point at Christ and say, ye of
little faith, would we? But the point we wanted to get
out of it was ultimately that we must lean on our Savior. We must lean on our Father. Yes, some of these things are
physiological in nature, and the Lord has made provision for
these things in the way of medicine, in the way of doctors. But at
the end of the day, the prescription given to us by God is that we
must all the more pray. We must all the more rely on
Him. when our faith is that mustard
seed faith, right? Jesus tells us that's all it
takes. That's what is required, just
that faith of a mustard seed. Sometimes our faith is great.
Sometimes our faith is small, but our Savior is always great. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, is
always there. He has secured for us salvation
and he has promised to give us comfort and peace. We also talked out of verse 7
about this phrase, redemption through his blood. And what we
explored last week was the purposes of the Old Testament sacrifices.
If you had ever been in the temple or been into the Holy of Holies,
it was not pretty. They didn't have beautiful flowers. They had troughs of blood that
spilled off of the altar. It was more akin to a butcher
shop than the pretty architecture that we see in churches today. So what we see there is that
Christ provides the blood. You read through the Old Testament
and it's blood, blood, blood. The law demands blood. The law
demands death. And those sacrifices were imperfect. Paul tells us in Hebrews that
the sacrifices of the temple could not perfect our consciences.
The Lord is not pleased in the blood of bulls and goats, but
the Lord is pleased in the blood of Christ. The Lord is pleased
to pour out his wrath on Christ instead of pouring out his wrath
on us, his people. So the purpose of these sacrifices
of the Old Testament was not to affect atonement, not to affect
justification, but it was to remind the people of God of the
promise of the coming of Messiah. It was to remind the people of
God that blood would be spilled one last time in Christ. Yet they could not see Christ
the way we do. Salvation has always been about
faith in Christ, but for them, their faith was in the promises
of God. Their faith was in the promise
given to Abraham, the promise of the blessing of the covenants. But we see Christ, we see the
blood clearly. We have received the full revelation
of the gospel. And in that we rejoice. So that
was most of what we got to last week. So now we're going to move
into verses 8 and 9. So start in verse 7, because
that's where the English Bible has punctuated the sentences.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, verse 8,
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. So first I want us to understand
this phrase lavished upon us. First, what is it talking about?
It's talking about the redemption through his blood and the forgiveness
of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which
he lavished upon us. The meaning here is that this
thing that is being poured out upon us, this grace for redemption,
this grace for forgiveness is bountiful, overwhelming, and
overflowing. It is complete. It is effectual. It has secured the things that
it is purposed for. We should understand that it
is not incomplete, right? The salvation of Christ was completed
for us on the cross. The work required for salvation
was completed on the cross, and that grace is now bountiful,
overwhelming, and overflowing. So that is specifically what
it's talking about here, this grace for salvation. It is complete. It is effectual. The work has
been done and the Lord is pleased in it. But we might view it as referring
even more generally to the bountiful grace of God, the bountiful blessings
that he pours out upon us beyond just the grace for faith, beyond
just the grace for salvation. And when we talk about those
blessings, those blessings that are more than just the blessing
of salvation, those blessings that come after salvation, after
our conversion, we should recognize that these blessings are not
given indiscriminately to all believers. These blessings are
not given in the same measure to all believers, right? If they were, then we could expect
that at the moment of conversion, we were perfected in this life. But that's not the case. We see
in some people maturity, the maturity that comes with time
spent in the Word, time spent in the assembly with the saints.
And even in those same people, we see a regression of maturity,
do we not? Sometimes you have bad days.
Days where your flesh that you were trying to kill rears its
ugly head and you misbehave, right? We have
those bad days. And sometimes we have good days
by the grace of God. But it's important to understand
that the context of most of these blessings that we receive from
our father are given in the context of the local church, right? These blessings of God, this
grace for maturity, this grace for growing in your faith is
given to the saints in the assembly. This is what we talk about when
we talk about the means of grace. Being gathered together with
the saints, hearing the teaching of the word, taking the Lord's
table. I preached a sermon back in maybe
September when we were doing the local church series with
the cheeky title, Sometimes God Cannot Be Trusted. And yes, it
was clickbait, but the point was that if you are not in the
assembly of the saints, if you are not engaging with the means
of grace that God has established for growing the maturity of your
faith, then you cannot trust that God will do that, right? And so here's the first hot take
of my sermon is that God's grace for maturing your faith is conditional
upon engaging with the means and methods that God has established
and promised for that purpose. Now I use that word conditional.
You remember last week we talked about how practical and doctrinal
legalists instill fear and to the children of God. If you have been victim to that
fear, if you have been taught to fear, that word conditional
might set something off in your brain. You might have been taught to
fear the word conditional. But I want you to understand
that words are not heresies. This is a little motto James
and I came up with a few years ago. Words themselves are not
heresies, we have to put them into a context of a complete
thought. Now, some heresies have names,
right? We named the heresy of Arius. We called it Arianism. He taught
that Jesus was a created being. It's not what I'm talking about
here. If I say Arianism, you know that I'm talking about the
heresy of Arius. But when I say conditional, that
word by itself doesn't mean anything, right? I have to put it into
the context of a complete thought. I'm reminded of once I used the
word synergy in reference to the way our study of scripture
privately synergizes with the teaching we receive on the Lord's
Day, right? As I read scripture and I learn
and I grow in my understanding of Christ, and then I gather
with you on the Lord's Day and I hear the word taught, Those
two things work together. There is synergy, and I was explaining
it to this person, and they said, synergism is a heresy. And what they meant was that
the doctrine of synergism, that is the doctrine that says that
we cooperate with God in our salvation, is a false teaching,
which it is, right? There's no cooperation, there's
nothing that we bring to the table of salvation, except the
sin that we needed to be saved from, right? That much was true,
but the word synergy doesn't mean anything outside of the
context of a complete thought. It just means working together,
right? Synergy, things work together. And so we should understand that
words are not heresies, and when I say the word conditional, I'm
not talking about salvation. This grace that was lavished
upon us for the redemption by his blood and the forgiveness
of our trespasses is unconditional. The election of God is unconditional. But God has established in the
context of the local church things that we engage with for maturing
our faith. And if we do not engage with
those things, we have no reasonable expectation that we will receive
the blessings attendant to those things. You might hear the words ordinary
and extraordinary thrown around. When we talk about the ordinary
means of grace, we mean those things that God ordinarily works
through. Those things that God has said,
this is for you. Do these things. These are the
blessings that come with it. Ordinary means of grace, which
are the things that we've talked about many times before, the
things that we do when we gather, the preaching of the word, the
declaration of the gospel. But sometimes God does work in
extraordinary ways, right? But the difference is you cannot
presume upon the extraordinary work of God. You cannot make
an assumption about what God is going to do if God has not
told you he's going to do it, right? He may work, he can work,
and he does work outside of the clearly defined means that he
has given to us. But we can't assume that he's
going to do that for any given person, for any given reason,
for any given time. So these blessings that he has
promised to pour out on his church, he has promised to pour out on
his church. And as we looked at that word
church, that word ecclesia, we see in scripture that it refers
to the local assembly. When the apostles tell us about
the church, he's talking about you guys. He's talking about
the people of God gathered to hear the word. Paul goes on, redemption through
his blood, forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the
riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom
and insight. And so this part of the sermon
is going to basically be a repeat of when Paul said, according
to the purpose of his will, because he's saying the same thing. According to the purpose of his
will, in all wisdom and insight, But what I want you to understand
with this is that Paul is again talking about the nature of God's
election. He's talking about God's free
and sovereign decree to save his people. Now I have a lot of experience
arguing with people on Facebook. I've more or less stopped doing
that because it's generally not fruitful. But people love to
argue about election, right? And when people bring up Ephesians
1 talking about election, they really like to key in on those
sort of low-hanging fruit words for proving your point. Verse
4, even as he chose us before the foundation of the world,
in love he predestined us. In him we have obtained an inheritance
having been predestined. And so those verses here in Ephesians
1 are very often ripped from the context of Ephesians 1 and
just looked at by themselves. But there's so much more here
in Ephesians 1 that teaches us about God's sovereign election.
And this is one of those phrases, in all wisdom and insight. And so before we get to understanding
what Paul's talking about here, we need to first understand God's
justice. the demands of God's justice.
What is it? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians
5, 10, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so
that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in
the body, whether good or evil. No one escapes the scope of God's
justice. We all will present a case before
him for what we have done. We will answer to the law and
those who are in Christ will point to Christ and say, his
righteousness is mine. Romans 2, verses one through
five, therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges,
for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself because
you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that
the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
Do you suppose, O man, you who judge, those who practice such
things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment
of God? Or do you presume on the riches
of his kindness and forbearance and patience? not knowing that
God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. But because
of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for
yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment
will be revealed. Isaiah 61, I the Lord love justice. Isaiah 30 verse 18, therefore
the Lord waits to be gracious to you and therefore he exalts
himself to show mercy to you for the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait
for him. So what's the point? God is compelled to be just. God cannot not be just. One, because he's promised, right?
God cannot go back on his promises. We saw that out of Numbers 23.
He's not a man that he should lie, nor is he a son of man that
he should change his mind. If he is promised to do something,
he will do it. Because God has promised to be just. Because
God has promised to judge the wicked, he will judge the wicked. But even more so, he is justice. And I don't want to get into
the philosophy of theology proper here. But when we say that God
is justice, it means that everything he does expresses that. Everything he does is a just
thing to do. The Lord cannot do something
that goes against his nature, right? So what I want you to understand
is that God is compelled to be just. God doesn't have a choice
when it comes to justice. He must be just. So when we talk about wisdom
and insight, we've mentioned it before, we want to talk about
this idea, this teaching that God's election is somehow according
to his knowledge of what you would do. Paul tells us in verse
eight that this dispensation of grace is given in all wisdom
and insight, but if his sovereign choice of election were actually
according to his foreknowledge of what we would do, then God's election is compelled
by his justice. Do you see that? It's not compelled
by his liberty. It's not compelled by his wisdom
and his insight. It is compelled by the facts
of the choices that he saw that we would make. He would only
be allowed to choose those who chose him. And so this idea that
God's election comes from the simple foreknowledge of God destroys
the wisdom and insight of God. It makes him reliant on us for
his decision making. Turn to Luke chapter 18, this
is what I had Brother Luke, not the apostle, but Luke, the guy
sitting right there, read for us. Luke chapter 18. I want you to see this because
Jesus tells us about the person who says that God chose me because
I chose him. Starting in verse 9, he told
this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were
righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up
into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself,
prayed, thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men,
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes
of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing
far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat
his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you,
this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. The one who
humbles himself will be exalted. So what's the point here? This
idea that God checked to see who would choose him and that
that is what election is talking about. This false gospel of the
evangelical cults of decisionism that God's waiting for your decision. It's up to you. This makes you
like this Pharisee who says, I thank God that I
am righteous. I thank God that I have decided
to follow Jesus. Now, before you start tearing that song out of your
hymnal. There's an important distinction I want you to understand.
We have decided to follow Jesus, haven't we? At some point in
your life, you made a decision to follow Christ, right? But
the important distinction is that we have done so through
the empowering grace poured out upon us by the Holy Spirit that
is only given to the elect of God for their conversion in His
timing. The false gospels that I'm talking
about say that God has done just enough to enable you to exercise
the freedom of your choice. But when we look at the wisdom
and insight of God, When we look at His sovereignty,
when we look at the overwhelmingly abundant grace poured out on
His people, we know that God has done everything that is necessary
for our salvation. This false gospel of the free
will of man says that God has made a way and it is up to me
to walk that path. When you arrive at God, you praise
him for making it possible. And whether you know it or not,
you praise yourself for completing the task. Instead, how are we saved? Because like the tax collector,
we cry out to God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Propitiate me, God. Satisfy your
wrath in me, God. On the cross of Christ, God's
wrath is poured out for the sins of his people and by the power
of the Holy Spirit, we are given life. We are given the gift of
grace and we cry out, propitiate me, Lord. So God, in his wisdom and insight,
according to the purpose of his will, appointed the salvation
of his people, according to his power, according to his methods,
according to his timing. He's not waiting on us to make
that decision. He has appointed the time and
the place, he has appointed the means and the methods, where he will pour out his grace
overwhelmingly on his sheep. In all wisdom and insight, making
known to us the mystery of his will. Now remember I told you
verses seven through 10 was actually all one really long sentence. At least in my English Bible
it is. I'm not sure exactly how the Apostle Paul intended this
to be punctuated. He didn't tell us. But we need to examine the context
of these individual phrases that we're examining. Verse nine, Paul says, making
known to us the mystery of his will. So let's review at least
this last sentence that we've been talking about. We begin
with the redemption through his blood. He says, in him we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. And
so Paul first explains the measure with which God has blessed us
and the source of that blessing. According to the riches of his
grace, which he lavished upon us. The measure is that it is
overwhelming and bountiful. The source is the riches of his
grace. And then Paul tells us a little
bit about the decision-making process that God goes through
there. It's not based on our works, it's not based on any
merit, but it's based upon God's own wisdom and insight for working
out his plan, the fulfillment of his purposes. And so Paul
now explains exactly how all of this works out for us in time. the mystery of his will. This mystery is revealed in the
effectual calling of the elect of God. All these blessings describe
the purposes, the reasons that Paul gives us. They come down
to the revelation of the gospel of Christ to his people. That the gospel is the power
of God for salvation. We see and understand the work of Christ.
We know how God saves his people. Paul tells us in Romans 1, the
gospel is the power of God for salvation. And so this mystery is revealed
to us in Christ. So why is it a mystery? What
didn't we understand until Christ? Christ. This mystery of the gospel
was not revealed to the Old Testament saints. They didn't understand
how it worked. They didn't know who the Messiah
was. When he showed up, the Jews that were around didn't even
recognize him. And this explains to us, again,
the purpose of these Old Testament sacrifices. They presented to
the people of God an incomplete and mysterious picture of the
promised Messiah. And then finally, in Christ,
the mystery is fully revealed. Turn with me to Hebrews. I'm
gonna do that thing where I just read a bunch of Hebrews. Instead
of explaining to you what Paul's talking about. Hebrews chapter
10, for since the law has but a shadow. of the good things
to come. Instead of the true form of these
realities, it can never, by these same sacrifices that are continually
offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise,
would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers,
having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness
of sins? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every
year. It is impossible for the blood
of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ
came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you
have not desired, but a body of you prepared for me, and burnt
offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then
I said, behold, I have come to do your will, oh God, as it is
written of me in the scroll of the book. For when he said above,
you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices
and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are
offered according to the law. Then he added, behold, I have
come to do your will. He does away with the first in
order to establish the second. And by that will, we have been
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
and for all. And so this is the revelation
that the Old Testament saints didn't have. this revelation of the Messiah,
this revelation of the work that he would do in sanctifying his
people once and for all through the sacrifice of his body. This is the mystery that is fully
revealed. And more of that mystery that
we see exposed in the Gospels is that these Jews, They thought
it was all about them. We talked about that last week
or the week before. We talked about the Pharisees who, we are
children of God because we are sons of Abraham. You are not
sons of Abraham, so you are not children of God. For them, the
mystery was that Christ came to save the Gentiles. For them,
that mystery was that Christ's salvation was for his people. True Israel, spiritual Israel,
the children of the promise of Abraham are the children of God. And every, that extends to every
race, every tribe, every nation, every tongue. We saw that out
of Revelation 7 or 8, where the great multitude gathered in heaven,
worshiping the Lamb in every language. These are the mysteries that
are now revealed in Christ. The mystery of his will. Now in verse nine, according
to his purpose which he set forth in Christ. He hath purposed in himself. Recall that when we talk about
God's purposing all of these things according to his own will,
we have security in that. We can feel secure in the promises
of God. We can have assurance of our
salvation because God has promised to complete that work in us. God has promised to preserve
us until the day of judgment. Back in Luke 18, now the first
eight verses, he told them a parable to the effect that they ought
always to pray and not lose heart. He said in a certain city there
was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. There
was a widow in that city who kept coming to him saying, give
me justice against my adversary. For a while he refused, but afterward
he said to himself, though I neither fear God nor respect man, Yet
because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so
that she will not beat me down by her continual coming. And
Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge says. Will not God give
justice to his elect who cry to him day and night? Will he
delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice
to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of
Man comes, will he find faith on earth? When I first read this, studying
this week, it seemed odd that Jesus would compare God the Father
to an unrighteous judge, right? One of the things that Jesus
came to teach is that he's a righteous judge. One of the things, when
we talked about God being a God of justice, was that God is a
righteous judge, and so this comparison to an unrighteous,
wicked judge seemed really odd. I think Jesus uses this particular
comparison in order to help us relate to God as a judge. And by that I mean, God uses
this analogy of an unrighteous judge in order to relate to us
how we continuously bother God with our constant prayer. Like,
do you ever feel like you're selfishly bugging God about the
same things over and over and over again? So unlike this unrighteous judge
who just grants the petition so that the lady will leave him
alone, God, the righteous judge, rejoices in our continual petitions. God, the righteous judge, is
faithful to bless his people, to answer our prayers, to provide
assurance and security out of joy and love for us, unlike this
wicked judge that Jesus tells us about in this parable. The point there is so that we
can see the contrast, that God is nothing like this, but we
understand both where the lady is coming from and where that
wicked judge is coming from, right? If you have children,
you understand where the judge is coming from. Mom, mom, mommy,
dad, dad, daddy. You're sitting there working
on something, you're doing something, you're trying to escape the world
for just a minute, and the kids are right there. And then you
blow up, you say, what? And they're like, can you throw
this trash away for me? And they're standing three feet
away from the trash can. We feel like that wicked judge,
and when we look at that, we can remember God's nothing like
that. God rejoices when we say, father, father, father. God rejoices when we speak to
him. God rejoices when we petition him. And he tells us, he will not
delay long over us. He will give us justice. And this purpose of God is set
forth in Christ. So remember, what are we talking
about? We're talking about the redemption by his blood, the forgiveness
of our trespasses, from what source the riches of his grace,
and in what measure bountiful, overflowing, overwhelming. Why
did he do this? According to his purposes. His purpose that he set forth
in Christ. He connects us all once again
back to Christ for the 17th time in only a few verses. Remember, I said Paul is repeating
himself, and so my outline here looks like it did two weeks ago.
We're gonna go back to John 17. Remember, we talked about that
covenant of redemption. We talked about that heavenly
transaction where God the Son is given a work to do, a work
to complete. in exchange for the promise of
a blessing where he would be glorified and given a bride.
John 17, Father, the hour has come to glorify your Son, that
the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority
over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given
him. And this is eternal life, that
they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you
have sent. I glorified you in the earth, having accomplished
the work that you gave me to do, and now, Father, and remember,
Jesus makes a demand of God. Glorify me in your own presence
with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. And so we have this twofold purpose
set forth in Christ. Okay, Paul says, according to
his purpose, which he set forth in Christ. And this purpose set
forth in Christ It's twofold. One, the redemption of his people. And by that work, the glorification
of the son in the marriage of the bride and the bridegroom. So all the stuff that we've been
talking about has been working towards this marriage between
Christ and his bride. That is the end of all things.
That is the work that he came to do, to redeem us in that He
would be glorified by the Father in his marriage to his people. Right, we go to Revelation, the
very end of the whole book. The Apostle John is given a vision
of a marriage feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb. I turned too far, I made it to
weights and measures and maps. Revelation chapter 19. Then I
heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude. That's
us. We're there. We're in this picture. We are the great multitude, the
people of God, gathered together as the bride of Christ at the
marriage feast. I heard what seemed to be the
voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters, like
the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out, hallelujah,
for the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come
and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to
clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous
deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, write
this down. Are you listening? Write this down. Blessed are
those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb. So we are washed clean by the
atoning work of Christ, right? The work that he came to do was
to make us presentable to his father. And we are clothed in fine linen,
which the angel tells us through John here is the righteous deeds
of the saints. And so we need to be careful,
right? Not make a mistake here. False
teachers will point to this and say, see, you still gotta do
your good works. You still gotta check your box.
You still have to constantly be working to clothe yourself
in fine linen so that we may be presentable at the feast.
And if you don't, maybe you're not invited. No. Read verse eight again. It was granted her to clothe
herself with fine linen, bright and pure. It was granted to you. to clothe yourself in fine linen,
bright and pure, Ephesians 2.10. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them. These good works, the fine linen
that we clothe ourselves in, these are prepared beforehand
by God that we should walk in them, big and small, lots of
them, a little bit of them, all of it prepared by God beforehand
that we should walk in them. We are counted righteous on account
of Christ's work, right? That's the only perfect work.
The work of Christ is the only perfect work, but we rejoice
in those good works that God has prepared for us. We rejoice
in the good works that God has equipped us to do. And we know that he is faithful
to work those things in us. He has promised to prepare good
works for us to do, and he is faithful to give us the grace
to do them. He is faithful to give us the
power to do them. God has clothed us in the fine
linen of the good works in which we walk. This is the purpose set forth
in Christ. One, that he would redeem his
people, and two, that he would be glorified in his marriage
to his bride. And this purpose set forth in
Christ is that he would wash us clean, and that he would clothe
us in the fine linen that was granted to us by God. All of this is worked out in
Christ. All of this is worked out by Christ. It is all of Christ. I'm not going to get into verse
10 this week. I'll get into it next time. Let's pray. God, we thank you that you have
prepared for us the good works that we will walk in. And we
thank you that through the power of your Spirit, we've been given
a desire to walk in those things. But most importantly, God, we
rejoice in your grace. God, drown us in the bountiful
and overflowing grace of Christ. And God, we thank you for your
word that through it we may grow and that we may understand these
things, that through it you have revealed what was once a mystery
to your people. And God, as we take of your table, give us that reminder, give us
that grace that comes from tasting and seeing the work of our Savior.
In Christ we pray, amen.