An appropriate text that Brooke
started with this morning and several things that parallel
very easily to what we are going to hear from the letter to the
Ephesians today. And that God does not despise
a broken and contrite heart, as David cries out in the 51st
Psalm. He looks favorably upon those
who tremble at his word. Oh, how the world needs men to
leave their homes and tremble before the Word of God. How the world needs women. And
children. And leaders. And rulers. And pastors. And kings. To tremble before the Lord and
before His Word. What power of hell, what scheme
of man? None can pluck us from his hands. There's a promise in that, in
Jesus' own words, that no one who the Father gives to me will
ever be cast out. I pray that you would understand
what it means to be the church, what it means to be in the power
of God. Last week, if you will turn with
me to the letter to the Ephesian church, Chapter 3. And we will talk for a moment.
There's so much I told you last week, it was going to be hard
for me to compile all the different arguments and the pieces that
are pulled out of here. I looked at a great man of God
and They're able to do it a lot better than I am and to preach
the letter to the Ephesians in like 20 weeks and 26 weeks. And here we are in week 19 and
are just starting with chapter three. And maybe by God's grace,
one day I'll be able to be more succinct in my learning and my
teaching. But until that time, bear with
me as we grow together. Last week, we ended understanding
this mystery of the gospel, looking at the reality that by God's
grace and God's power, that God had entrusted Paul, his worst
enemy, Christ's worst enemy, the church's worst enemy, Saul
of Tarsus, then to become the greatest apostle, the greatest
teacher, the greatest preacher. through whom the message of the
gospel was to go out to the world of the Gentiles and he would
preach salvation unto the Gentiles so that we, all of us, could
be drawn to the Father and saved through the Son by grace through
faith. And so we saw that Paul as a
prisoner was a prisoner by the grace of God, for the grace of
God, of the grace of God, and that Paul's imprisonment was
not a problem, but rather the purpose of God in his life. That
God purposed Paul's imprisonment so that the gospel would go forth
and be preached with boldness and power. He says that in other
portions of his writing. He does not say that he is a
prisoner of man, but rather that he is a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
That no man holds Paul, just as Jesus, speaking with Pilate,
said that no man holds him except that the will of the Father be
fulfilled in him. And so as we ended our time last
week, we saw that the fullness of this suffering was for the
benefit of the glory of God, for the sake of the saints who
were to come to faith from then till whenever, until Christ returns. And we close with the idea of
just some just a list of thoughts that as we see the power of God
at work to imprison Paul, we ask ourselves, do we see the
power of God at work to imprison us to righteousness, to imprison
us, to enslave us to right living, to enslave us with affection
to holiness, to make us slaves to Christ? Or indeed, are we
still slaves to the flesh and dead and our trespasses and sins
against Him? We've seen in this text that
we ought to have unity as a people, and next week we will deal very
explicitly with that and what it looks like in every aspect,
Lord willing. That we are to strive to worship
with our hearts, our minds, our soul and our strength so that
we have been saved unto good works as Paul develops so clearly
in this argument. We've been saved unto suffering.
We've been saved unto teaching. We've been saved unto preaching.
We've been saved unto unity and doctrine and faith and affection
for the gospel. So there's a recap of the last
two Sundays. And now here we are again in
chapter three. I will start in verse one of
chapter three of Ephesians. I'm going to read down through
verse 19 and totally confuse all of you. I'm going to pick
up a few pieces and then we're going to deal with verses not
in necessarily any order, six through twelve. Just in case
you wanted a map. For this reason, I call a prisoner
for the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming
that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given
to me for you, how the majesty was made known to me by revelation,
as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive
my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known
to the sons of men and other generations, as it has now been
revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit. The
mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of
the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through
the gospel. Of this gospel, I was made a
minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given
me by the working of His power. To me, though I am the very least
of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone
what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created
all things. so that through the church, the
manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers
and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to
the eternal purpose that was realized in Christ Jesus, our
Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through
our faith in Him. So I ask you to not lose heart
over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. For
this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family
in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches
of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power
through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell
in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded
in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height depth and to know
the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled
with the fullness of God. Now, to him who is able to do
far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to
the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.
Amen. Let's pray. Father, it is very, very, very
hard to focus on this text in some of our hearts. It is very
difficult to pay attention to hear the words. It's very difficult
to not be distracted sometimes by what's going on in our lives
and inside of our heads. The concerns that we have in
the world, the pride that is swelling inside of us, Lord,
just the battle with sin. Father, it's difficult not to
put these things in front of You, but Father, if it pleases
You, would You through Your Spirit, Take away these things and move
them away from our face and our hearts and our thoughts and help
us to hear Your Word and to focus on You in such a way that we
are transformed by the Gospel. Brought to life from death, brought
to joy from depression, brought to freedom from imprisonment,
Father, that we would see Your power at work. God, we will not
fully grasp the absolute, immeasurable essence of Your glorious might.
But God, today, would You help us to see a small little picture?
Would You help us to see what John means when he says, and
from his fullness, We receive grace upon grace that we have
seen the fullness of your glory in Jesus Christ. God, please
help us to understand. As Paul has prayed for these
Christians in Ephesus, Lord, so we pray for ourselves. That
your power would be at work in us for our joy, for your namesake
and for your glory. In Christ's name, Amen. There is so much. Here. Let's just get started. The power
of God, the fullness of what I want to really focus on today. is the idea that God's power,
look at verse 7 of this text, of this gospel, I was made a
minister according to the gift of God's grace. Now we used that
text last week to prove that the gift of God's grace is what
put Paul in prison. So prison was a gift from God
to Paul. And not just there, but also
in Philippians and Colossians, we see Peter with the same mindset,
that I rejoice in my sufferings. Suffering is a guilt from God. Which was given me by the working
of His power. Now, this is the key that I want
us to focus on today. It's very hard to exposit this
text and just assume everybody understands everything that's
being said. So when we hear the working of the power of God,
we must stop. And Paul doesn't always say,
OK, and what I mean by that is, and give us like 25 pages of
writing, which he should. Paul should do it right. If I
were around, I would have straightened these apostles out. They should
have written a little bit more so that we wouldn't have to look
so hard throughout all the different writings. But you know what's
great is Paul did write. more. He just wrote the different
churches into different places, into different peoples. And so
we have to see it. But not only did Paul write it,
God had already established it in the Old Testament. He'd already
shown the working of his power. And so I want you to pause for
a moment and I want you to think about the power of God. Kids,
you need to think about the power of God. OK, how old you are,
whether you're one or one hundred and one, you need to think about
the power of God right now. You need to consider it. You
need to think about how amazing He is, how mighty He is, how
majestic He is, and you need to grasp and understand the incomprehensible
idea of God's power. The Scriptures teach that we
ought to tremble before His Word. A sweet text. One of my favorite
texts. We ought to tremble before the
mighty hand of God. We ought to fear God, but yet
we go bold before His throne. We know that we should not fear
man, but fear God who can cast both body and soul into hell.
And we also know that that type of fear doesn't cause affection,
the scripture says that the demons believe and tremble. So this power of God is at work
in Paul and this power of God is at work in you, if you hear. If you have Christ in you. It is at work in you. Otherwise,
what we see in Paul's writing in chapter 2, what is at work
in us? If the power of God is not at
work in us, then the power of the devil is at work in us. The
power that are in the sons of disobedience that is working
in our lives, that is working through our lives. And we are
vessels of destruction according to the text. And God will rightly
and justly and divinely put judgment on us if we are not in Christ. Now, let me give you a little
thing to think about. Anyone who preaches to you a
gospel that does not start with God's divine, holy worth and
His divine judgment, they have lied to you and deceived you
and tricked you. I know I'm being redundant. And
they have coached you into coming to a man-made gospel that will
condemn you when you stand before Christ. You know, when people preach
the true gospel, it was no different in Jesus' day. Those groups of
people got really large, and then when Jesus would preach
the truth, they'd get really small, really fast. When the apostles would preach,
they'd have all these people that want to see power. I want
to see power. I want to see God's power. I want to see Him speak
in a different language. I want to see Him raise somebody from the
dead. I want to see Him heal the blind. I want to see this.
And they see it, and then they see the marvelous power, and
they see the power at work, and they see miracles, and then they
hear the gospel, and they go, I don't want that garbage. I
want power, I don't want truth. You see, you can't have one without
the other. Everybody likes to see David Copperfield, but if
David Copperfield got up there and said, all of you are judged
and guilty before God, and except you be saved by His grace, you
will be judged and you will perish. You'd get a refund for that ticket.
I didn't sign up to have you preach to me. I wanted to see
a rabbit come out of a hat. Or a car disappear. Or a girl
catch on fire. Whatever it is that he does.
I didn't want to see that. It's the same thing they were
doing in the day of the first century. And it's the same thing
that people flock to. As Paul warns Timothy, there
will come a day when people will gather up teachers for themselves. You know what that means? I don't
like the gospel. I'm going to find a preacher
who preaches what I like. And then Paul says to the church
of Galatia that they would be forever condemned if they preached
another gospel. For there's only one true gospel,
and it starts with the judgment of God on unrighteousness. Do
not be deceived. The very existence of the very
fact that we were conceived puts us at judgment. It is not our
wrongdoings that cause us to be under the judgment of God,
it is our existence. We are sinners, and then we sin
because we're sinners. And if it weren't for the grace
of God, we would never have affection for holiness, be transformed. So the power of God is at work
in the saints, in the church. Let's review it for a moment.
Let's look, and if we can, and we can't go holistically through
Scripture, but there's a few things I want you to see. See
what Paul says. Look at verse 14, 15. Where is
it? For this reason, verse 16, that
according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be
strengthened with power. See, that's a prayer. We'll look
at that some next week and the week before. But Paul is praying
that the Christians are strengthened with the power of God. And that
God alone can bring that power and strengthen them. And so in
that, keep that in mind that Paul is going to be praying.
We're not preaching that text, but I wanted to get it in the
context today. We're dealing with the idea of what power and
how is God's power working in the church in this time? A.W. Pink writes this way in
quoting Spurgeon along the way. I love it when people who are
dead quote people who are dead. It's like two mirrors in a barbershop. And then we all quote Paul. And
what's ironic is I just, is that a misnomer? They're not dead,
they're alive in Christ. God, he says, is like himself.
God's power is like himself, self-existent, self-sustained. The mightiest of men cannot add
so much as a shadow of increased power to the omnipotent one. He sits on no buttress throne
and leans on no assisting arm. His court is not maintained by
his courtiers, nor does it borrow its splendor from his creatures.
He is himself the great central source and originator of all
power. Where do we see that? Well, there
are many places that we could look, but just what we saw in
Isaiah 66 today. Who builds a throne for me? Who
puts somewhere for me to rest my feet when all that there is
I've created to stand upon? Amazing that Paul reiterates
the prophet Isaiah when he says, has a plan for the fullness of
time to unite all things in him and heaven and things on earth.
And when He says that He will 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, Christ who fills all in all.
In Job 26, verse 14, we hear these words, God saying, Behold,
these are but the outskirts of His ways. And how small a whisper
do we hear of Him, but the thunder of His power. Who can understand?
We're talking or we're hearing the text of just dealing with
the creation of God, not God Himself. God, in a comparative
way, starts to talk to Job and says, look what I have made.
Consider the behemoth. Consider the great creatures
of this world who could destroy man with just a stroke of its
tail. And yet you question I who made such power. So God, all
power, all dominion, all authority, as we see in the latter part
of Revelation, is due Him And the power of God is seen in His
might, in His nature, in His essence. He needs nothing else
to be added to Him in order to be the omnipotent One. We also
see God's power in redemption and damnation. In Exodus chapter
4, we see God speaking to Moses, saying, when you go back to Egypt,
see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have
put in your power. But I will harden his heart so
that he will not let the people go. So God's power saves and
God's power condemns. Deuteronomy four, because he
loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and
brought you out of Egypt with his own presence by his great
power. Do you understand that the Israelites
saw now reflect on the narrative of the Exodus story where they
had been enslaved? for hundreds of years. And then
God brought them out with power, with plague after plague after
plague. And Pharaoh would relent when
God would put pressure, and then he would harden his heart when
God gave him grace and took the pressure off. And so now we have
the display of God's power in the wilderness and the Pharisees. The Israelites. Go into the wilderness,
and God separates the sea and drowns the Pharaoh's army. And
He follows them in a cloud of smoke by day, and a pillar of
fire by night, and mighty day. He feeds them every morning supernaturally
with manna. They saw Mount Sinai. They heard
the voice of God. They saw in the display of His
majesty and His might. They heard the Word that said,
if even an animal touches the mountain, it should be stoned
to death, for nothing can approach Me except that I make it right. How are we right with God? Through
His declaration of righteousness. And that's only possible through
Jesus Christ. And they saw all of this, and
as Moses was up in the mountain, they melt down. Aaron, the brother
of Moses, who became the founder of the Levites, the father of
the priesthood, melted gold and built a cow and worshipped it
at the display of God's power and majesty. The same thing happened. Years and years and hundreds
of years later, as Jesus displayed his power, they wanted to kill
him because he claimed to be God. But then they would just
sort of let it go into the next little occurrence. But when he
raised Lazarus from the dead, they said, that's it. Jesus has
to die in the scriptures in John's gospel say, then they plotted
also to kill Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. I find
that absolutely ironic. Let's kill the man that just
came back from the dead. But that's who we are without
God's power saving us and changing us. We are blind to even see
and we shake our fist in the face of God. God's power is the
power to save and the power to condemn. And when we see it,
we worship him, we who are his. Be exalted, O Lord, in Your strength.
We will sing and praise Your power. Psalm 21, 13. Many times
people have argued with me, Pastor, what in the world? Are we to
worship the attributes of God? No, we worship God and we know
Him as He reveals Himself through His character and nature. So
we worship God's power. We're not worshiping what it
does. We're worshiping the essence of who He is. We're worshiping
God. Once God has spoken twice, have
I heard this, that power belongs to God. He is the owner of all
power. In Job, we know that God empowered
Satan to touch the life of Job. God was the author of Job's suffering. He sent the enemy to touch him,
to destroy his life and to take away all that he had. Why? To
the praise of his glorious grace. So God is the giver of power,
not only to the wickedness of the world, for it says that God
has ordained all authorities, visible and invisible, whether
kings or dominions, powers. God ordains them all. He empowers
them all. He puts everyone who's ever sat in a public office in
place. He puts even heretics in pulpits,
I believe. God is the giver of power. Not
only to the strong, to those who think that the power rests
in themselves, but also to the weak. He gives power to the faint
and to him who has no might. He increases strength. Isaiah
40, 29. And then in verse nine here, now we're back to our text,
we see in verse nine, Paul says this. And to bring to light for everyone
what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God. Look
how He qualifies who He's talking about. Who created all things. Why would Paul say that? Because
Paul knows who God is. God who spoke and all that there
is leapt into existence. God is the Creator. By His power,
He created all that there is. Lift up your eyes on high and
see who created these. He who brings out their hosts
by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of His
might, and because He is strong in power, not one is missing. It's often argued by scientists
when they look at the vastness of the universe, why did God
waste such space? with this third rock in our solar
system from our sun to just put life here. Why would all this
be wasted? It's not wasted. The Scriptures
say that God contains all that there is in the immense of the
infinitive universe God holds. So the universe is to declare
the works of His hands. Everything we see is to declare
the power of God. And this was declared to be the
Son of God. Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power,
according to the Spirit of holiness, by His resurrection from the
dead. Jesus Christ, our Lord, in Romans 1, 4. I will tell you
this, though. God's power is clearly seen in
Romans chapter 1, verse 20, for His invisible attributes, namely
His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived
Ever since the creation of the world and the things that have
been made, so they who are they? Those who do not believe those
who do believe all men, for there is no distinction. All men are
without excuse for God's power is clear to them. It's clear
to us, church. And in 2nd Corinthians 13, listen
to this. I warned those who sinned before
all the others, and I warned them now while absent, as I did
when present on my second visit, that if I come again, I will
not spare them, since you seek proof that Christ is speaking
in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among
you. For He was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power
of God. For we also are weak in Him,
but in dealing with you, we live with Him by the power of God.
Examine yourselves, therefore, to see whether you are in the
faith, Paul says. Test yourselves. Or do you not
realize this about yourselves? That Jesus Christ is in you?
Unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test. I hope you will find
out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to God that
you may not do wrong, not that we may appear to have met the
test, but that you may do what is right, though we seem to have
failed. What Paul is doing there is he's
telling these Corinthians, though their act has straightened up
in some sense to test themselves, to see if they're in the faith.
They need to understand that it is Christ in them and that
it is the power of God in them. that manifests good works, that
brings them to repentance and keeps them in the faith. And
that if they're not walking in the faith, fighting against the
flesh, then the chances of them truly being the children of God
are slim and ill. We ought to test ourselves to
see we're in the power of God. Why? Because God's power cannot
be ignored. We are without excuse. Jesus
speaking to the Pharisees who they took Scripture and they
thwarted it and they twisted it and they took it out of context
to make it match what they desired to be taught. And he says, you're
wrong. You neither know the Scriptures
nor the power of God. They didn't even understand.
that they were doing the work of the enemy. And the power of
God cannot be ignored, for judgment will come upon all unrighteousness
of men who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness. The
Scripture teaches that we who ignore the power of God do so
at the cost of judgment. But now, back to here. Where
are we today? The power of God is at work in
His unified body. Friends, I want you to understand
something. The church is not, nor has it
ever been, nor should it be an institution. When the church
operates institutionally, it is an abomination in front of
the face of its father. When it operates administratively,
apart from the gospel and the power of God, it is an absolute
abomination before God. For it takes what God has done,
and it paints the wrong picture on its face. And it says, we
are the people of God, and yet we do everything except operate
at the power of God. God did not create. You think
people in Saudi Arabia are getting up on Sunday mornings to go do
their church thing? You think people in the backyards
of China are going and trying to figure out how they're going
to get the air conditions working? You think people in Iraq, people
in Afghanistan, People in villages of Africa, people in other places
across the world who love the gospel and love Christ, they
are not concerned with what they're doing today in worship. They
are concerned as to whether or not they'll live to complete
their worship. The power of God is at work in
His unified body. Next week, we will look at the
picture of what the church ought to be. Right there in Ephesians
3, verse 10. This power is at work. It is
the power of God in the life of the church for the sake of
His name and for the sake of His glory. He works with power
in all who believe. What does this power do? Let's
look at it. Look at verse 12. I'm going to
mix up these things because they're not necessarily in the order
that I wanted them to be in. So I changed them. The arguments
there, the puzzles still there, I'm not. Changing Scripture,
I'm just pointing to them in different orders. Verse 12, "...in
whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith
in Him." The power of God at work in the church gives us access
to God the Father. It creates a people for Himself,
an intimate relationship, and we call that intimacy worship. We ascribe worth with our lives.
We ascribe worth with our hearts, with our hands. We do what we
do for the sake of the gospel and obedience to Christ, not
to earn His favor. For no righteous act of man can
earn the favor of God. No matter how good you are, no
matter how sweet you are, no matter how much you die for a
good cause, you will not stand before God, justified before
Him, or even get His eye based on what we do in good works.
without faith, it is impossible to please God. But yet so often
we preach, do this, do that, do this. Christians, if you're
a Christian, then you'll do that. But if you're a Christian, then
you'll do everything for the glory of God. If you're putting
on your socks or whether you're wiping your butts, you'll do
it for the glory of God. So God's power gives us intimacy,
allows us to worship. It also is over history. The power of God is over history. In other words, He is sovereign
over history. Look at verse 9. and to bring to life for everyone
what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created
all things. Now, why did He compound that
together that way? Because there is a mystery that
has now been revealed through Jesus Christ and through the
apostles and through the New Testament now, which is what
we have. It's not this osmosis-type mindset that we just sort of
hang out and we feel God. No, we learn God, or we don't
know Him at all. It is only through the learning
of the Word of God that we can even become Christians, because
God's grace only moves through the taught Word and through the
red Word. You can take this and read it. God will save you, but
He will not save you apart from His Word. Yes, you don't have
to hear me preach. You don't have to hear someone
preach. You don't even have to hear it,
but you do have to see it and in your heart hear it. You will
not come. Where did you get that? Romans
10, 17. You cannot come to faith except through hearing and hearing
cannot be given except through the words of Christ. Christ's
words supernaturally bring to life what is dead. Do you understand? To bring the light. So God is
over all. So in other words, it was Tuesday night. I thought
we preached this last week. This doesn't make sense. But
Tuesday night, we talked about the idea that all of creation
All of creation from the beginning of let there be light to the
day this earth is renewed and destroyed and everything in it
is under the feet of Christ and His body. That's big. Until that
time, all of that, everything was for the sake of God's sovereign
control and glory being revealed in creation and history. God
is in control of all things. He's sovereign and His power
works for history. He created them all. And this
plan is made visible. And that's why He did it. Concerning
the salvation, Peter writes, the prophets who prophesied about
the grace that was to be were searched and inquired. Listen
to this. I don't have time to preach this today, but please
listen. And by God's grace, you'll hear it. The prophets who prophesied
about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,
inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them
was indicating when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and
the subsequent glories. He goes on to say in his second
letter, For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we
made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 2 Peter 1, verse 16. And what we see there is that
all the workings of history, all the choices of men fall into
the power of God's divine decrees. For nothing that man does falls
outside the path of the linear glory and majesty and history
of God's divine decree. All that there is falls in line
with that. Otherwise, if I can thwart the
plan of God, then I am more powerful than he. Thus, I am God. This was according to the eternal
purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Verse 11. What else does the
power of God do? Let's look specifically in the
last few minutes of our time together at the power of God
in the church and the outcome of God's power in us. Now test
yourself to see if you are in the faith. Power for faith and
repentance, verse 7. Of this gospel, I was made a
minister. Now you might say, wait a minute, where does it
say that? Well, I was made a minister according
to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of
his power. Not only did that prove that the ministry that
Paul was called to and everything that happened to him thereof
was a gift from God by God's grace and by God's power, but
it also should bring to mind who Paul was before he became
a believer. God's power brought faith and
repentance to Saul. Some of us don't realize that
God saved Saul divinely, supernaturally, while Saul, as we see in Acts,
while Saul was going to have the disciples arrested and imprisoned
and hopefully killed. He wasn't worrying. He wasn't
sitting at his desk contemplating, am I doing the right thing? You
know, I've heard the preaching of the gospel. I've heard their
message and I'm so confused. No, he heard the preaching of
the gospel and he said that was blasphemous. How dare they say
that this man, Jesus the Christ, was God in the flesh, Emmanuel. How dare they say that He came
to earth and that through Christ alone comes redemption, comes
glory, comes salvation. And how dare they say that this
man who was a criminal and tried and crucified has now been raised
from the dead. Let's go to Damascus and let's
kill him. And on the way there, God stopped
him and gave him eyes to see. That's right. Stopped him and
saved him. So Paul was made a minister according
to the gift of God's grace. Do you see that? It didn't say
Paul was offered a ministry by the grace of God. It's just not
a cookie tray that God lays out and says, I hope they come and
taste the chocolate chip. And we pick up the macadamia
nuts or the roach nuts or whatever it is that we might happen to
be eating, thinking this is the best thing for us, and God's
going, no, no, no, no, I wanted you to pick my cookie. So ridiculous. It puts God in such a pathetic
state that He's begging people to come and grab hold of what
He has for them that is so rich that they just taste it. How
many people taste the Spirit of God and taste the power of
God and taste the Word and live in proximity of religion and
the church all their life, and yet they fall away and they never
look back and they don't love Christ. They just do spiritual
things. How many people put stock in the fact that they have come
to a decision one day in the past and that that decision they
made sealed their eternal life? It might have. It might have
sealed it for destruction. It's about being saved and rebirthed
by the power of God. This is a God who has in His
hand the outcome of all things. And friends, if you are truly
a believer today, it is because God has shown favor to you and
shown you through His Word that you need to repent and believe
in the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the salvation of your soul.
And we worship and we fight and we are poured out, as Paul says
to Timothy, And then as we repent and have faith, God's power gives
us that privilege. And then God's power works in
us good works. In chapter 2, if we back it up
a little bit, verses 10 and 11. For we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them. When did God prepare them? Beforehand. Therefore, remember that at one
time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by
what is called circumcision, which is made in the flesh by
hands. Christ now has made you alive. Power. The power of God. What
is the outcome? What do these good works look
like? Well, I'll be honest with you. I think they're very simply
put there. in several ways. And there's
two ways I see good works. I see the Hebrews. Of course,
we ought to encourage one another. And if you look in Hebrews and
you see there where it says, do not neglect meeting together
as some are accustomed to doing. You know, we have abused that
so much and said to everybody, see, we've got to go to church.
You know what's crazy about that? There was no church then when
Hebrews was written. There was no service that people
just sort of piled up in and parked in and went to. This,
what we do here, this isn't but a couple of hundred years old. This was not the norm in first
and second century. This wasn't the norm. This is
something that we do, and I think it's a good thing that we do,
but it should be the only thing that we do. And that's not what
Hebrews is talking about, about neglecting to meet together.
We ought to do life together. And that has become so watered
down because of the secret sensitive movement. Because we've got to
do life together. We've got to love people. We do have to love.
I'm not making light of that. But loving people is not teaching
them the gospel. And most importantly, when we
see in the New Testament the instructions of the apostles
and the instructions of Jesus and the warnings in John's first
epistle, where if you do not have love for one another, you
aren't a believer. The truth does not rest in you.
You are a liar and you do not practice righteousness. And anyone
who practices lawlessness or practices sin practices lawlessness. And the Scriptures say that Jesus
came to do away with the work of lawlessness, to do away with
the works of the devil. And so in that now... What are
these good works? We ought to be loving each other
in a way that it costs us. Remember that last week? Paul
gave us his life and the grace of God empowered him to do impossible
things so that he could give his life for the sake of the
joy of others, which brought him joy and brought God glory.
In other words, Paul is saying, I am so happy with where my life
is in chains, beaten, left, stranded, stoned, shipwrecked, so that
your joy may be full because mine is. In Christ, your joy's
full, my joy's full, and I'm suffering that your joy might
be full. See, the point. Hallelujah, breakdown time. And
that's what Paul's saying. And if we looked at Paul today
and said, look at that, most people in most churches in this
country would say that man's got a problem with God and his
faith is waning. Look at the suffering that he's
experiencing. Well, I'll challenge you, church. Share your faith
and watch how wonderfully suffering comes by the grace of God. And
it will come right up through here and right in here and then
that will start relational issues and that suffering will come
through there and then suffering will come through your church
and from your pastor or from your teacher or from your friend
or from your spouse or from your kids or from your community or
from your elected officials or from your government. And one
day it may cost you your freedom and it may cost you your life. Wham! to his glory. What are the good words? Well,
Paul mentions two specifically in reverse order, verse eight
to me, though I am the least of all the saints. So there's
another one, there's humility. The least of all the saints,
this grace was given. To preach to the Gentiles, the
unsearchable riches of Christ. Matthew 28, 19 and 20, you know
what that says, it's called the great what? Why is it called
that? Because that's what we stamp
on the top of it. That's why it's called that. That's the
only reason we call it that is because that's what the Bible
translators stuck up in the English in the heading. Let's turn to
the Great Commission. You know what I like to say it
is? It's the Great Declaration. Jesus didn't ask us to do anything. He said we who are his will.
He declared it to be. Because all authority in heaven
and earth has been given to me, therefore, as you are going,"
that's what it says in the Greek, "...making disciples, teaching
them to obey Me in all things, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and surely
I am with you until the end of age." That's what it says. Jesus
didn't say, I want you to do this. He commands it, and most
importantly, He declares that it will be. It's like taking
a fish and you have him in a plastic bag from the store, and you cut
the bottom of the bag, and you let him swim into the tank. He's
going to swim when you cut the bag, unless he's dead or sick. If the thing flies up and starts
talking to you, shoot it. Call him. Tell him you've got
some kind of demon and not a fish. Fish swim. Christians teach people
about the gospel. Plain and simple. And I've just
got through reading some books on evangelism that I wish I'd
never put in my brain because they sit around and yes, fear
is a big issue. And yes, we need to be trained
and be equipped. And by God's grace, Grace Truth Church, we
will know what it means to share our faith in Jesus Christ and
how to effectively do it. But there have been so many excuses
as to why Christians can't share their faith. Well, you know,
their upbringing was bad, or their personality is a little
different, or they've got some kind of disorder, or they've
got some kind of a thing in their foot, or their ears are a little
bit uneven, or one of their eyeballs is green and the other one's
yellow, and this, that, and the other. Well, they had a hard
life, or they've got a substance abuse problem, or whatever. You
know what's crazy about that? Everything that you love, you
share. Whether it be your sports team, whether it be your girlfriend,
whether it be your fiancé, whether it be your new Cadillac, or your
dog, or whatever it might be. Your new firearm, your new boxing
glove, whatever. You share it. Because you love
it. You know a lot of Christians
don't share their faith, they don't love Christ. Paul says, I've been thrown in
prison, I've been crushed, I've been burdened, I've been destroyed.
I've done all these things, but I've not been destroyed. 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. So he saves unto evangelism,
unto preaching the very least of saints, giving the grace to
preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches. Do you preach, articulate
with your mouths the truth of the gospel, not just with your
lips. You can't live people into heaven. You can't live people
into salvation. The purpose of good works is
for God to be glorified in John chapter three, the very end,
so that they may see that it is clearly seen. Here's what
it says. that your works, their works, those who come to the
light, have been carried out in God. Jesus says, let your
light so shine before men that they see your good deeds and
give glory to your Father in heaven. It doesn't say so that
they'll believe. Jesus walked righteously. And
they didn't believe, they didn't even believe when he showed him
his power. What's the other good word? Unity,
fellowship. Look at verse six and then we're
done. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members
of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus
through the Gospel. The Gospel, the word evangel.
The word that we come up with, evangelism. The good news of
Jesus Christ. The Gospel. The Scriptures say
that all Gentiles who are in faith are fellow heirs with Israel,
members of the same body. and partakers of the same promise
in Christ Jesus through the gospel. So we preach for unity and fellowship. We are a family together. We
don't come together and act like a family when we're together.
We are a family. The power of God will breed that and grow
that and bestow that to us. And what's the big deal? Well,
we've already gone through and looked at what the big deal is.
As Paul says, we were lost. We were without God, without
hope in the world. We were not partakers of the
promise of the covenant. We were not these people who
were close to God. We were far away. We were lost. We were dead in our trespasses
and sins. But God, being rich in mercy,
because of the great love with which He loved us, even when
we were dead in our trespasses. Listen to this word. Remember
the verbs? Made us alive together with Christ. By grace you've
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, and faith is not of your own
doing. It is the gift of God, not as
a result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2,
4-9. So what does that mean? What
difference does that make? You might say, so what? Well,
so what? I pray you don't say so what? I pray that in your
heart you see the beauty of God's grace given to you. The power
of what God's glorious omnipotence does in your life. Omnipotent
means all powerful. God saves by grace through faith
fully. And the command of Scripture,
not the call, not the question, not the request, not the plea,
but the command of Scripture is this. Listen to it very carefully. Repent of your sin and believe
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. God, it is amazing
to see Your power at work in us. That we might have love,
that we might have unity, that we might have faith, that we
might be spared because You have declared us righteous through
Jesus Christ. God, You know the hearts of everyone
here. You know the hearts of everyone
that will ever hear this sermon or this message. Father, You
know who we are. And to what end we will believe
or reject the Gospel. But God, we pray as Your children,
we pray as Your body, saved by grace, that You would bring to
faith all who hear these words today. That they would rise up
and cry for mercy every day knowing that it is not on their and their
ability to come to You, except that by grace You have given
them eyes to see their sin and to see Your holiness and to believe
in Jesus the Christ. So, Father, we thank You that
You are the God who saves and that Your Word does not just
float out there, but it either saves or it hardens. It breaks
down and gives contriteness. It just seals rejection and unbelief. Lord, please bring all that hear
to saving grace before that day is done. While you were still
close and while your words are still near to us, let us draw
near to you. Father, continue to work in us,
Your church. Thank You. You've promised to
sustain us and preserve us. Help us to grow more in love
with You, more deep in our understanding of grace, and more unified in
all that we do for the sake of Your glory and for the sake of
those who are lost among us and a part of our communities. In
Jesus' name, Amen.