Ephesians chapter two. Last week,
Resurrection Day. We looked at the outcome of what
God has done, the actions that God has done, how God has moved
on our behalf. For his glory to display his
righteousness and becoming like us and taking human form. The fullness of God was pleased
to dwell in Christ. Christ living a perfect life,
fulfilling the law of God righteously, wholly, then willingly giving
His life, His passive obedience on the cross, accomplishing the
atonement, we who were once far off without hope in the world,
without God in the world, now have been brought near. We have
been brought near to God by the blood of Christ. That's where
we are today. And then last week, we dealt
with this text in Ephesians chapter two, verse 17. Follow with me
as I read. And he, Christ, came and preached
peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
For through him, we both have access to one spirit. to the
Father, in one spirit to the Father. So then, verse 19, you
are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with
the saints and members of the household of God, built on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus Himself
being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined
together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also
are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the
Spirit. Now, there is more in these short
verses than I would be able to preach. in probably six weeks,
eight weeks more. I touched on it very shallowly
last week. I look at it again this week.
I have been enamored and overwhelmed with the process of this text
and by God's grace, we'll get through it. But we're not in
a hurry. Why do we labor so over the Word? For the Word of God is the sufficient
authority in the life of the church. And if we are looking
any place else, tradition, man's ideas, creativity, programs,
anything, we are failing to move by faith. And anything that does
not proceed from faith is sin. And we need to understand the
full implications. Also, the power of God's spirit
is given through his word, not through osmosis. You can't walk
next to someone who walks with the Lord and they bump into you
and then all of a sudden you're filled with the spirit of God
and approaching God and walking in holiness. You must get it
and receive it through the word. So we're not in a hurry. We're
going nowhere. Unless the Lord comes back, of
which I'm done. Or I die and I'm done. And then somebody else
can take it from there. We know that the Word of God
is sufficient and that the gospel must be spoken and language must
be present in order for one to come to faith. You cannot lead
people to faith by doing good deeds. You cannot show the love
of God by expressing concern, though if you are a child of
God and you have no concern and you have no good deeds, your
faith is useless, according to James. So it is the result of
true faith. It is the result of being born
again. And all of this fruit comes from the Word. And in verse 17, I don't know
how I'm going to preach because I don't know really what text
here I wanted to preach. I've been so confused. Verse
17, And He came and preached peace to you who were far off
and peace to those who were near. Now, it's very simple. As we
left last week, it's very simple for us to say, oh, that's the
difference in the Jews and the Gentiles. Those Jews who were
near and the Gentiles who were far off without God in the world.
OK, good. Well, that's nice in the narrative. But what's the
doctrine? What's the theology behind it? Is it that way? Were there not Jews in the Old
Testament who were also far off in the dispersion? Were there
not Jews in the New Testament who were also far off? Do we
not see Hebrews where the writer exhorts them to, though you have
rejoiced in the plundering of your property, for you know you
had a better possession, an abiding and eternal possession? Do we
not know that there are those like Peter speaks to, the Jews
that Peter is talking of, those who are part of the dispersion
of all of Palestine, who have been kicked out of their homes?
When the terrorist Paul, if you will, as Dr. Annabelle so eloquently
dealt with this past week, that the gospel can save a terrorist.
And he builds up the, it was amazing, I won't preach this
sermon, but he builds up the idea of the power of the gospel
against all things and all religions and all unbelief. And then he
points to Paul as the world's worst terrorist. His persecution
toward Christ and toward the Christians in the first century. And God saved him on his way
to terrorize in Damascus. His way to plant a dirty bomb
by throwing all of those apostles in jail. So he preached. Christ has preached and he is
continuing to preach. And so this is not just the word.
This is not just the incarnation, as we'll see. I didn't know what
to do here. I didn't know if I was going
to preach about the preaching of Christ or if I was going to
deal with growing into a holy temple in the Lord, being joined
together as a structure in Jesus Christ, or if I was going to
deal with the idea that we are going to be a dwelling place
for God by the Spirit. And then we go to Revelation
and we start to look at eternity and we start to look at the worship
of what the church ought to be. Friends, we as a people are not
an institution. We are a people of God's own
possession. We who were not a people have
been brought near by the blood of Christ so that God in His
glory and in His will and in His pleasure would save us out
of the judgment, out of the darkness, out of all of the wrath that
is pending and remains on all who are non-believers. so that
he would have a people for himself. Why? Jesus died for those who
are the believing ones. Jesus came to bring near those
who were far off, which includes us. which includes every human
being at one time, at their conception. And Christ has made us one with
God. While we were still enemies,
Christ died for us. I didn't know if I was going
to deal with this text and deal with the issue of racial separation
and racial integration, though we spent most of February dealing
with race relations. It's here. It's in the text.
I didn't know if I was going to deal with the Word of God
as the foundation of the apostles and deal with the Old Testament
as the foundation of the prophets, which is very clearly taught
here. We have sermon series after sermon series. Every word, every
line is something new. It's something amazing. It's
about the mercy of God in the lives of people who deserve nothing
but His judgment, and yet He gives us grace upon grace in
Christ Jesus. We know that in this text we
have seen that Christ has brought all the peoples of the world
as one people. Not every individual, but of
every nation and every tongue and every tribe as we see in
Revelation chapter 5. Every people group. And I've recently learned
that there are approximately 6,000 people groups in this world
today that have never heard the name of Jesus. For it is almost
impossible to get Jesus to them, except you die. Six thousand
peoples, people groups. We are one new man in Christ. And so as I prayed, I asked the
Lord to just give me clarity because I've been a mess. I'll
be honest with you, just mentally, emotionally, what am I supposed
to do? And so by his grace, I will throw
what I have not done at you and by his grace, he will preach
to you. In verse 22, the specific thing
that I want to focus on today in verse 22. In him, you also are being built
together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit, because
I think that's the ultimate end. I think that's the last portion
of what God is doing. I am teaching through Ephesians
because we are a planting church. We are a group of people who
are have yet to even be members or be covenant members. And we
are looking at the picture of what the church ought to be,
not through someone else's teaching, not through an opinion or tradition,
but through God's word. The letter to the Ephesians is
the constitution for churches. It shows that. God has created
the church to be a people for and to the praise of His glory.
And that means corporately, but it also means individually, as
we'll see today. So the implications of this is
huge. I could go on. But God is building,
building and uniting His temple. You see in the book of Revelation,
the last few chapters, where we are the pillars in the temple
of God. So it's not the church is not
a place. It is not an institution. The
church doesn't do things because the church is a person. The church
is a people. The church is the bride of Christ
for whom he died in Ephesians five. We'll see how beautiful
the marriage depicts that and how awfully we suffer in the
flesh of trying to put that picture forth for the world to see. And
if it weren't for God's grace, we would fail. So in this, there
are several questions. If we are to be the people who
are growing into the temple of God, for God to dwell, we know
that the Scripture teaches that Christ has created, is preparing
us, rather, for the presence of the Father. And so God is
growing His bride. He's growing the church. Christ
is empowering the church. You might ask yourself several
questions. The first question I want to ask, or that I ask,
that I'm going to ask of you, is how does the church grow?
How is it that the church grows? How are we to grow into maturity
as we see what in chapter two, verse 18? For through him, we
have access in one spirit to the Father. The first and primary
way that we are growing and that we do grow is that we first grow
into believing. We grow into becoming a child
of God through the Spirit of God, which has given us grace
and given us faith, as we see in chapter 2, verses 8 and 9.
We also know that God is growing us into that holy calling that
He has called us to in verse 4 of chapter 1, where it says,
Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined
us for adoption as sons through Christ Jesus, according to the
purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which
He has blessed us in the Beloved. So if we are growing as a people
and we are growing as a person, we ought to be growing into the
maturity, as we'll see in chapter 3 and 4 in a few months. into
the maturity, into He who is the Head who is Christ. This
is how Paul words that. So if we're growing, how do we
grow? First, by the Holy Spirit we grow. We see that God empowers
His children to grow in grace through His Spirit. The Spirit
then is given to us through the preached Word. And it's amazing
to me that we see that the Scripture talks about how Christ has preached
peace to us. It's very superficial to say
that means He just sort of came. He did His job. Or that means
that when He preached on the earth, He sort of preached His
messages. That's so superficial. It does not fit with the whole
of this text. This text is this supernatural event that God has
done and that God is sustaining, that God is perpetrating and
is continuing. holding the church up. So, Jesus
preaching is not an event in history, but the absolute existence
of the world, and He is the light of the world. So, everything
that Christ is, the whole Gospel, from Genesis to Revelation, everything
we see in the Scripture is Jesus preaching peace to His people. All of it. See how long this
sermon could be? See how long that could be? We
could go to Acts chapter 7 and we could see from the beginning
of the Old Testament up to the day of Christ where Stephen is
stoned because of his faith. Because he turns to the Pharisees
and he preaches the entire New Testament expositionally. And
then he says, and then Christ fulfilled it all and you crucified
Him too. You stiff-necked, stubborn people. And they held their hands over
their ears and they screamed and rushed at Him and carried
Him out of the city and stoned Him to death. They buried him
and stoned his head. And as Stephen was dying, he
looks up and says, I see the Son of Man standing at the right
side of the Father. When Jesus finished his work,
church, and Jesus sat down, according to Hebrews chapter 2. So if Jesus
is standing, Jesus receives his saints. He's actively working
as our high priest. Jesus preaches peace. In Him,
we have access in one Spirit to the Father. We see in Matthew's
Gospel, chapter 9, verse 13, where it teaches us Jesus speaking,
go and learn what this means. He says, I desire mercy, not
sacrifice, for I came to call not the righteous, but sinners.
How is it that God can show mercy to sinners? Because Christ took
our debt on His flesh. and willingly put himself under
the judgment of God the Father. In Luke 19, Jesus speaks and
says, For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. Timothy
chapter 115, Paul, this saying is trustworthy and deserving
of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners of who I am the foremost. Church, Christ has
preached since the beginning of time, and He continually preaches
today. He says in John 10, verse 16,
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring
them also, and they... Listen to this emphatic, imperative
statement. Jesus says, and they will listen
to My voice. You know what's secure about
our salvation is that when our shepherd calls his sheep, we
will hear and we will listen and we will obey. And Jesus says
in John 10, there will be one flock and there will be one shepherd. Jesus preached much more than
just through his life and death. Jesus, the living Word of God,
the Logos that was with God in the beginning, who was God and
who became flesh and dwelt among us. And in him we have seen his
glory, glory as the only son of the Father, full of grace
and truth. And from that fullness, we all receive grace upon grace. This is the gospel. And this
is preached to you through Christ today. In John 3, we see Jesus
talking to Nicodemus, just as my daughter Grace has thrown
snakes on a pole today. And it says, As Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but may
have eternal life. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish,
should not perish, but will have eternal life. For God did not
send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order
that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes
in Christ is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned
already because he has failed to believe in the name of the
only Son of God. So the gospel is continually
preached in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1-4. One of the very texts that
God used to open my eyes to see the essence of what God was doing
in the world and that I was not that important in it. Long ago,
at many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the
prophets. But in these last days, he speaks
to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through
whom also he created the world. He is the radiance, the glory
of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds
the universe by the word of his power. After making purification
for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on
high, having become much superior. to the angels as the name He
has inherited is much more excellent than theirs. In Hebrews 2, we
see this stark warning. And it teaches us, as the writer
says, therefore, because Christ is preeminent, because Christ
is preaching to us a gospel, because we have heard the gospel
of Jesus Christ, he says, therefore, we must pay much more closer... I know that's not right grammar,
but I just wanted to get it out there. We must pay much closer
attention to what we have heard. lest we drift away from it. For
since the message declared by angels, and I'll talk about that
in a minute, proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience
received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect
such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the
Lord and was attested to us by those who heard, while God also
bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts
of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will. So we
are continually hearing the gospel preached, and it's Christ who
preaches that gospel. He preached the gospel passively
in the Incarnation in Luke chapter 2. In those days, as we see in
Luke 1, where Gabriel met with Zechariah at the incense altar
and told him that his wife, Elizabeth, would have a son, the forerunner
to the Christ, that he would pave way and make way straight
the path of the Lord and the power of Elijah. And the world
at large there was in awe and in wonder. And the fear of the
Lord struck them when they realized that this man was named by God
and that Elizabeth named him John. And then at the moment
of that time, the Lord gave Zechariah his voice back and he spoke his
name shall be John, which was incredibly opposed to the culture. You named your son after you
or the name of someone else in your family. And so now here
is, the Scripture says in Luke chapter 1, that people feared
the Lord, for they knew that this child would be great. Talking
about John the Baptist. And then it teaches us at the
end of that, that God put him in the wilderness until the day
that he was supposed to start his public ministry. Then the
Spirit of the Lord, the angel of the Lord spoke to Mary. And
the angel of the Lord says, God has given you grace, Mary. The English says, found favor
with you. We often misconstrue that to think that that means
Mary was very virtuous. She probably was, but she was
not righteous. In no way was she deserving grace.
She deserved judgment, just like the rest of humanity. That's
why worshiping Mary is an abomination to God. She is not the mediator
between the Father and man. Jesus Christ is. So we pray for
our brothers and sisters or our professing saints as they continue
to do man's way of getting to Jesus Christ, getting to the
Father through his mother. Pray for them. And so in Luke
chapter two, which is the point I was trying to make, Augustus
Caesar. had control of Palestine, had
control of Israel, had control of Jerusalem. He governed sovereignly
all the land. And he decided just out of his
own volition, he wanted to count everyone whom he ruled. And so
he ordered by divine decree, because the Caesar was God's,
to Rome. He ordered by decree that all
people should report to their home cities and be counted in
a census. And it was God's direct, historical,
absolute, divine purpose that Augustus Caesar would rule, and
that Greek would be the common language, and that we would have
this time when Christ would be born, and it was His sovereign
rule that Caesar would actually call for a census, and then it
would find Mary and Joseph in Jerusalem. in Bethlehem at the
time of the birth of Jesus, that He might be birthed as a lowly
nothing in a stable or in a manger portion of a home. And then God
spoke to the lowest form of life on the world. He spoke to shepherds. And they were fearful. And those angels said, Fear not,
behold, for unto you is born a child in the city of David,
who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you.
You will find him wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a
manger. And then the multitude said, Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace among those with whom he, God, is pleased. There's Christ preaching. Understand
that Christ is preaching how? On the world, are we to grow?
We grow through the Word of God. We grow through grace alone by
faith, which is a gift, not of your own doing, lest no one boast.
Faith is a gift of God. We cannot take credit for being
smart enough to make the right choice to follow Christ. But
we must know that Christ preaches to us. So we grow through his
word foundationally. Yes, there are a lot of other
disciplines that we need to deal with. But friends, we don't have
time to deal with the outcome of what foundationally will cause
that naturally and supernaturally, which is to study and to prepare
oneself in the word of God. As my friend Dr. Bill Downing
says, put up your study Bibles and study your Bible. Well, we know how we grow, in
essence. Now we ask the question, to what
end do we grow? Why? What's the purpose of it? To
the praise of His glorious grace. As we look there in verse 22
of chapter 2, we see that God is creating a people to be His
temple, to be the place where He dwells, not as a building. It's a metaphor. I hope not. I hope we're not standing around
on each other's heads to hold up a tent. No, we are the dwelling
place of God, for the Spirit of God dwells in us. Do you understand
that even in our corrupt flesh, the new nature that we've been
given belongs to Jesus Christ and that He, the fullness of
God, dwells in us in the Holy Spirit and empowers us to walk
by faith and in power? Friends, I have struggled my
whole life to understand how a Christian ought to walk in
power. And God is teaching me day by day, season by season,
that it is through His grace and given through His Word. I
cannot sit and meditate on the niceties of doctrine and the
niceties of theology and the philosophy of all this theologizing,
whatever you say it. But I must understand that it
comes through God's Word alone. How? We grow. To what end do
we grow? To the praise of His glorious
grace. As I've already read in Ephesians 1-4, even as He chose
us in Him before the foundation of the world. Why did God choose
us? So that we should be holy and
blameless before Him. And thankfully, He said we should
be. He called us to be holy. And He's going to equip us and
make us holy. He won't let us be perfect in
this life. But in the new kingdom, in the new flesh, in the glorified
body, as we see in Romans 8, 28, it's past tense. Paul is
so confident in that God has done the work already and we
just wait for it. We wait for it by faith, knowing
that God will redeem the whole man, not just the spirit, not
just the soul, but the flesh. And we will be alive like Christ
who is like us, as a brother who is the first to be raised
from the dead. And there will be many who are raised from the
dead glorified. We grow to the end of His glory. We ought to display, as we see
in a couple of weeks in chapter 3, verse 10, the purpose of the
church is to display the manifold wisdom of God. Manifold meaning
many, uncountable, immeasurable. We are to display God's wisdom.
Are we doing that through growth? Are we giving glory to Him in
what we think and how we speak? Of course not. So by His grace,
we are saved through faith. And this is not of our own doing.
We are unable to effectively walk in Christ without His power.
And even then, we rebel from season to season. But we do not
practice lawlessness. For anyone who practices lawlessness
is not of the Father. But we practice righteousness.
Why does it say practice? Because I don't think we could
ever perfect it. And if we could, we would put our faith in that
and we'd stand with an argument against the father and be able
to argue our way into eternal life, comparing ourselves to
him. But we are not like him. And we need him desperately in
every aspect of our life. So we are to grow and we are
to grow because we are to give glory to him. If we are stagnant,
as I'll close our sermon out, our service out, if we are stagnant,
there's a problem. And that has a that has huge
implications if we're not growing in our faith, if we're not growing
in our worship. But what is the evidence of growth?
How do I find if I'm growing? The text is here. It's not my
own decision. It's not my own interpretation.
It's not my own opinion. For by grace you have been saved
through faith, and this is not of your own doing. It is the
gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may
boast. 4, verse 10 of chapter 2 says, For we are His workmanship. Whose workmanship? God's workmanship.
We see that everywhere. We see that in John chapter 3,
verse 21, where Jesus speaks Himself. He says that those who
love the darkness do not come to the light, because when they
come to the light, their works will be exposed. They don't want
the world to see what they do and who they are. But he who
does what is true, you notice the comparison is, isn't come
to the light. They don't come to the light
because they hate the light and they don't want their works to
be exposed. You notice that it's not then who love the light,
come to the light and then their works are exposed to see righteousness. But it says he who does the truth,
he who does what is true. The Christian does what is true.
The Christian walks in righteousness. The believer, the one who has
been saved by grace through faith, which is a gift. I know I keep
repeating that, but you need to get it. That is the work of God. And it said that he comes to
the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works, whose works? He who does what is true, have
been carried out in God. God does good works. Where do
we get that? He prepared beforehand that we should welcome them.
God establishes the path of the righteous one. That's why the
Scripture is full of comparison and testing. If you say this
and you act this way, what's wrong with that? Your profession
doesn't match what you say. Or your walk doesn't match what
you profess. So something's wrong. And we
see in Corinthians where, okay, you say you're a believer, but
you're living in a rebellious sin. Then something has to be
done. You need to be accountable to
that. so that you can either repent and be encouraged and
worship together as a church that is holy and blameless and
working in the power of God, or you must be kicked out of
the church for the destruction of your flesh so that your soul
might be saved. That's Paul's language there. I mean, 1 Corinthians
5. It's hard stuff. Why do we do
that? Why would we kick people out of the church? We don't kick
Christians out of the church. God does. The Word does. And I don't even like to use
that term, kick, because we don't really have to kick people out.
We just encourage each other to walk the walk. And when we
see each other strained, we gently, knowing that if it weren't for
the grace of God, we'd be in that sin with them. And if we hung
around those people long enough, they'd see where we needed to
be called out. And we better be very, very, very careful to
get that log out of our eye before we can deal with the speck and
our brothers. And the purpose of discipline is to encourage
and to rebuke and to exchange a formal and divine intimacy
within the body of Christ so that we keep and walk here before
the Lord. We keep accountable to the word
of God. So when it comes to this, the evidence of growth then is
faith. Primarily, faith. Everything that does not proceed
from faith, this is sin. He who knows what to do, which
is right and does not, this is sin. For the righteous walk by
faith, not by sight. So faith is the foundational
evidence of growth. Wait a minute, I have faith.
I've done that. No, we don't do faith. We didn't
have faith. We are faithful. In our faith,
until we're unfaithful, then what happens? Then God's faithful.
And what we found is that God's faithful all the way through.
God is faithful to save, God is faithful to sustain. It's
not about us. But we must have faith. Faith
when the world falls out of our hands and crashes down on our
head, we have faith that God is working it out for our good,
Romans 8. For our good, for those who love him and are called according
to his purpose. For those who predestined, he called. And for
those he called, he justified. For those he justified, he sanctified.
For those he sanctified, he glorified. This is all past tense stuff.
That's what I'm preaching tonight at 630 at Antioch. And so in
that, we are looking and seeing the evidence of growth in our
life. And we're not putting our faith in our morality. For even the
wicked can walk moral in the eyes of man. But wicked sinners,
their righteousness is worthless. Our righteousness is our good
works. We don't get rewarded, Jesus says, for doing what we're
commanded to do. We don't get extra benefits. We don't get
accolades and attaboys for being righteous before Him. But by
being born, we have violated the law before we are born into
sin. We don't get to a place where we start. You think an
infant, when it cries, you feed it, you love it, you change it,
you rock it, you hold it, and it cries and cries and cries because it
wants something else. A one-year-old, a two-year-old,
a three-year-old, and then after they get up, you realize, you
know what? I'm not that bad a parent at all. This child's just selfish.
It's just a little sinner. And I better pray for it, because
the Lord helped me. You see, we're sinful, and the
judgment of God is on us, except He save us. So faith alone, foundationally. Then we see unto good works. gives birth to works that God
is doing. God is the one who does. We don't
resolve that we may think we do. I don't want you to raise
your hand. This is all this is all rhetorical. How many of us
in the room can honestly say that there's been sin or failure
or spiritual apathy in our lives at any time, maybe recently,
maybe years ago, where we knew we ought to be in church more,
read the Bible more, pray more. We ought to be more dedicated
to our studies. We ought to be more patient, less hateful, don't
yell, don't cuss, don't get upset driving down the freeway. You
know, all these things that we have said are, I'm going to start
doing better in this. Don't raise your hand. I'll raise mine for you. We've
all done that. Usually about New Year, right?
Next year, you know what? I'm going to walk with the Lord
a little closer. And how long does that last until the next
temptation comes? And then we just sink, we sink. And sometimes we don't sink externally.
We are actually pretty good at holding ourselves together. And
we know that, hey, nobody saw me sin, but boy, I know I did.
Nobody could follow me around and hear it, but you know, in
your heart, we sin. We cannot. work outside of God's
working. So when we know that God is working,
when we see righteous acts, when we see love and affection, when
we see spiritual and holy affections, we know that God is working in
our lives. But we do not put our trust in
that fruit. We put our trust in the fruit
of Jesus, who is the Holy One of God, the anointed of God,
who perfectly fulfilled the law. We don't put our faith and our
hope and being children, except in the spirit of life. For his
spirit testifies with our spirit that we are as children. Because
if we weigh the evidence and we find out when we think we're
doing pretty well, we are blind to so much of our own sin, it's
not even funny. Because when we think we're doing
well, friends, we're just not praying effectively for God to
show us our hearts. Paul had to admit his sin publicly
In the letter to the Romans in chapter six and seven, because
nobody could see it. As a matter of fact, Paul says
his actions were above reproach. He says that according to the
law, I was blameless. You know what that means? That
you could have followed him around his whole life and never caught
him on sin. Because he followed the law of
God pristinely, but he was still a lawbreaker. And even when he
followed it, he broke it. because his affections were wrong,
his mindset for crying out loud, he rebuked and rejected the Jewish
Messiah that he studied for years to proclaim. But his sin was
within. And these good works are not
just the desires of the flesh, as we saw last week and the week
before, and you were dead in your trespasses and sin in which
you once walked, following the course of this world, following
the prince of the power of the air and the spirit that is now at
work in the sons of disobedience. in whom we all once lived. So
now we are not sons of disobedience, but sons of obedience. But it
is God's working in us. We are not walking in the desires
of the flesh anymore. We fight those desires. We hate
those. Even when we don't want to hate
them, we hate them. And we pray for God to help us
hate them. I hate this God. I want to hate this God. You
ever love something so much you wish you hated it? And sometimes
when you know it's a sin and you go, I don't really feel bad
about that. Don't lie to yourself. Please. And if you've never had that
moment with the Lord, you will. You just keep the Word in your
face. Get out of the books. Get out
of the movies. And get out of the bathroom readers.
You know what I'm talking about, not bathroom readers. Gosh, Oswald
Chambers, nothing wrong with that. Don't make that You'll
walk with Christ. Put the Word in your face and
in your heart and He will show you all the desires of the flesh
that you never knew possible. And you will go, but I like that
desire. And then you have to say, God,
I don't want to like this because it's not of you. You ever prayed
for God to give you brokenness? Return to me the joy of my salvation,
David prays in Psalm 51. So the evidence of growth is
that we have faith alone in God and His works. And we see good
works, but we don't put faith in those works, but in God doing
those works. And then we're joined together to the praise of His
glory. We're maturing in grace. We worship in spirit and in truth.
We put our nose to the grind because we desire to know God
more. And friends, I'll just help you
out. Don't feel guilty. Let me tell you what the gospel
does. The gospel brings guilt and relief in the same blow.
It's oxymoronic. It's like a punch to the gut.
And then when the fist of God comes back, it's refreshing. So as you feel, wow, I'm failing. Of course you're failing. That's
why your faith is in Christ and not yourself. Of course we have
to work harder, but we do it in freedom, not bound to the
legalism, not knowing. Friends, our sin, not doing sin
is not what saves us. Christ saves us. God saves us. So if not doing sin doesn't save
us, then doing sin doesn't condemn us. We are condemned by the very
nature of our existence. Yes, sin does condemn and the
wages of sin is death. But as a believer, friends, we
are free from death. So as we grow in grace and worship
in spirit and truth, we become more like Christ and the power
of His Word wells up in our hearts. And we can't do that. We can't
go once a year to a conference. We can't go once a week on Sunday
and expect to continually. I had lunch about one o'clock
and I'm hungry now. How about you? Would you not
eat till next Sunday? No, you'd be in the hospital.
Because your body would shut down. Friends, our spiritual
bodies shut down when the word is not forever in our hearts
and minds. So my prayer is that you would
see where you are and that you would not put faith in yourself,
but you would pray that God would help you. In Christ alone, by
faith, God's power rests in us, church, and works through us. But God, Ephesians 2, verse 4,
as we talked about a few weeks ago, just as a reminder, being
rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved
us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, made
us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved,
and Christ 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. My thoughts here was that we
see God's faithfulness in us. Our faith is in Christ and we
see God's faithfulness. Seek the Lord while he may be
found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake
his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return
to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our
God, for he will abundantly pardon. The Lord appeared to him from
far away. I have loved you with an everlasting
love. Therefore, I have continued my
faithfulness to you." Isn't it wonderful to know that God is
faithful? Hope does not put us to shame, Paul says, but because
God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit
who has been given to us. John says that we love because
He first loved us. Are we growing in that grace?
Are we growing, church? Are you growing, Christian, in
that grace, in that Word? Yes? To what degree? Maybe you're
growing today, but you'll be declining tomorrow. Maybe there's
a season of dryness. Maybe there's something. Don't
look at pragmatism as a way of finding favor with God. Don't
look at the practical three points that you might find in the back
of a cigarette box or a taco box or a billboard or a bumper
sticker and say, hey, this is this is exactly what I need to
do. I'm going to do these three things. You'll do them for nothing. And you'll fail and you'll still
be where you are today. Thank God for his faithfulness.
Cry out for mercy. And if we're not growing, something
is wrong. If we're not growing, then we're
not growing into being a house of God, a dwelling place for
the spirit of God. But in the sense we're growing
into being a house of sticks or a house that's a fixed foundation
on sand. And when the floods came, what
happens to that house? I call that the aroma, Christian,
that we go on the aroma of what we smell rather than sinking
our teeth into the meat. Like when you are very, very
hungry and you go into a restaurant and you smell the food, do you
just, that's all I needed. And you walk, no, you order.
And then you would patiently wait as they ignore you for an
hour. Now, you're frustrated. You need
food. You want food. You paid for it.
Where's my food? By the way, that's sin to be
like that. That's okay. Just don't do it on Sundays.
Do it every other day of the week. That's a joke. But what happens if we're not
growing? Well, the writer of Hebrews tells us in chapter 6,
verse 4 through 8. For it is impossible. Now listen
carefully. It is impossible in the case
of those, so we're talking about individuals, who have, and we've
got a list we're about to see. It's impossible in the case of
those who have been enlightened, see, they have light, who have
tasted the gift of heaven, who have shared in the Holy Spirit.
who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers
of the age to come and then have fallen away. And we'll stop there.
You see these see these identifiers. There's people who have been
enlightened, supposedly who have tasted the spirit, the gift of
heaven, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted
the goodness of the word of God and tasted the goodness of the
powers of the age to come. And then they fall away. What is
falling away? They forget their faith. They just forget it. And by hearing this word of caution,
those who have fallen away will not even listen to it. What is
it impossible for? See, it's impossible, and then
there's a comma there, and then there's this identifier, who
he's talking about. It's impossible. What does it say? To restore
them again to repentance. It's impossible to restore them
again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the
Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up to contempt.
For the land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it,
and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated,
receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles,
it is worthless and near to being cursed. And in the end, it is
to be burned. Now, there's a lot of things that we need to look
at here in this text, and it's not what I wanted to preach today,
but I want to close with that because it's important to understand
the warnings of Scripture. And if you sit here today, professing
Christ, confident in your relationship with Him, knowing that you're
a child of God by the Holy Spirit, but you are falling away, you
are neglecting the salvation that has been preached by Christ
in order to build you into the house of God, you are in danger
of being cut off forever. Now, you might say something
right now. You might ask the question, wait a minute, I thought that
I had eternal security. You do if your faith is in Christ.
And if your faith is in Christ, you understand that God's Word
through His Holy Spirit, brings you to perseverance. If you remain,
Paul says, you will be saved. But we don't put hope in our
perseverance. We put hope in Christ who perseveres us. You'll
find it interesting to see in the Old Testament where David,
when he saw Bathsheba, lusted after her and then killed her
husband so that he might cover up his sin. After that, God said that David
was a man after his own heart. Why? Because God's grace persevered
David in the midst of murder and adultery and deceit. And he brought him to repentance,
Psalm 51. Because that's where the children
of God go when their sin hits them. They repent and they trust
in Christ. So this house of God, this church
individually, we make up the corporate body of the church.
Are we walking away? Are we neglecting a salvation
that has been preached to us? And if just retribution has been
given to those who heard the prophets and the angels, how
much more serious is it going to be when we ignore Christ Himself?
The house of God. A key phrase here. Look at it. In Him, the whole structure,
verse 21, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the
Lord. In Him, you are also being built
together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. We are
growing as a holy people. We are unified in Christ. So
there's three things. If we are not growing, we are
not unified in Spirit. If we are not growing, we are
not unified as a people. If we have a family, Half of
our family is growing and healthy, and the other half of our family
is riddled with bacterial disease or infection. What happens eventually? Everybody can become sick. So
we're not unified. And chances are, if there are
some among the church, and there always are, not necessarily you,
but don't put ourselves out. Don't eliminate yourself from
this possibility. Test yourself to see if you're
in the faith. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
But don't shrink back in fear, for perfect love drives out fear,
and we come bold before the throne of grace, crying, Abba, Father,
Daddy. We are one people, and if we
are not growing, we don't keep that unity in Christ and the
bond of peace. If we are not growing, we should have one heart,
one mind, one soul. But if we're not growing our
hearts, what we love begins to take root on something else.
We look at this thing and we go, I love this, but this is
my affection. This is what I want more than
anything. So I'm going to put my focus on this thing. This
is my joy. This is why I live. And it may
be attached to the church. It may be attached to the gospel.
It may be around the gospel in proximity, but it's not Christ.
And if we aren't growing individually, we're not going to grow together
in affections. And you want to see what happens when churches
don't have unified affections for the gospel? They split. Red
Door Baptist Church, Blue Door Baptist Church, Green Hymnal
Baptist Church, Rock Band Baptist Church. I mean, you've seen it.
So-and-so community church. Oh, great, a new church is in
town. Why don't y'all start a church? Because we hate those people down the
street. Really? I'm going to clean my ears out
and come back and ask that question again. Well, how did God call you to
start this church? Because, well, my last pastor was a jerk. Pastor, why'd you leave that
church? Well, those deacons, they're just godless people. I couldn't stand
them. They may be godless people, but you'd have to stand them.
This isn't how God gives birth to unify. Yes, churches split.
Churches divide. Churches multiply. God takes
and says, no, I'm not going to take John Mark with me. Barney
says, well, I am. And Paul says, well, you're not coming with
me. But they came back together. They didn't hate each other.
Are we unified in affections? You know what? That affection
needs to be the gospel, the Word of God alone. Sola Scriptura. If we aren't unified on the Word
and its correctness and its doctrine, then we're in a mess. And that
brings me to the next thing. We must be of one mind. And if
we're not growing, we're not of one mind. And in doctrine,
learning, teaching. What does the Scripture teach
about who God... How do we know God saves? Because the Scripture
teaches that He saves. How do we know how He saves? Because
the Bible teaches us that God elects His children. How is He
able to forgive me when I'm so sinful because He took my sin,
He took your sin, He put it on Christ who is holy, and He crushed
it. So He satisfies the judgment
against you. It is paid. And ultimately, as a people,
when you start looking at the church, you think, well, what
about the ministry? What about the method? What about all of this? So if
these things aren't, if our affections and our unity and our mind are
not unified in the gospel, then our methods and our ministries
will be dime a dozen. Everybody in the church will
be the director of something new and a new focus about a new
thing, about a new approach to doing something better for somebody
else. And then we'll stand up here and we'll go, alright, if
you really love Jesus and you really want to serve the Lord,
you need to sign up for this. If you really want to be active
in the church, if you really want to do something for the
community, then do it. You know what? Go preach repentance. You
know why we can't preach repentance? Because we don't preach to ourselves.
We're not hearing Christ preach to us and growing as a people.
That's the purpose of the church. In a nutshell, we grow into maturity
for the praise of the praise of His glory to display His wisdom.
Because you know, only God can put people together with all
the sin, exponentially united, with different ideas, different
music styles, different clothing styles, different attitudes,
different beliefs, different backgrounds, everything. Only
God can put them together and they walk lockstep in grace.
And when the church doesn't walk in unity, it is because the Word
has slipped. Slipped away. We've practiced
underhanding and cunning, underhanded ways. Paul says in 2 Corinthians
chapter 4, we renounce these things. But by bold statement
of the truth, We lend ourselves and our consciousness to everybody,
ourselves to everyone's consciousness and before God. And if our gospel
is veiled, it is only veiled to those who are perishing, to
the unbelievers. For the God of this world has
blinded their eyes that they might not see the light of the gospel in
the face of Jesus Christ. For God, who said, let light
shine on darkness, has shone in our hearts to give us the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. And we have this treasure, the gospel, in jars of clay.
Friends, you ever drop the clay pot? You only have to touch it
really hard. It will pop. God has put his
word in our in our hands and in our hearts and in our mouths. And the minute we think we've
got it, we'll crack. Why is it in clay pots? Paul
says there in 2 Corinthians, so that it may be clearly seen
that the all surpassing immeasurable power belongs to God and not
to us. And then he goes in that big,
encouraging exposition of how we're crushed and struck down.
We're not destroyed and all that kind of stuff. We sing songs
and celebrate. We don't even know what it's talking about. Dance, spin
around, nothing wrong with dancing, singing songs, celebrating, but
we need to know the truth so we can worship in spirit. Why
are we singing that? Why are we doing that? That's
not the sermon for today, but I'm going to pause there. And
my call to you is this, is that you see and hear and rejoice
in the gospel of Christ. That you leave this assembly
powered, empowered. by His affection toward you,
that you are growing. And maybe you do. I pray you
do. I do. You know why I hate preaching
sometimes? I love preaching. I can't do anything else, because
sometimes it's so laborious. Because I have to deal with my stinking
wickedness and my failures and my lack of ability to uphold
what I'm about to tell you to do. So I walk with you. Just
about that much ahead. About right there. I have a second. And it's beautiful knowing God's
faithfulness for His church. And so, as we continue here,
please read this text. Just read the Bible. Read Ephesians. Pray that God would show you
something, feel you something. And if you don't feel it, pray
for God to give you that. God, I am dry. If God can bring bones to life
and have them walk, and He can bring a dead, wicked heart to
life and call it His, He can sustain you in your faith. The
problem is most of us who feel weak are still doing it on our
own. We're still trying to say, I'll
do this and this and this and this. Walk with Christ. Walk by faith. And let Christ
be the cornerstone of you and of your fellowship, wherever
that might be. Let's pray. Father, we're so
grateful. So, so, so grateful. It's amazing, Lord, I don't have
the words to pray. We could list things that we're
grateful for, we can we can express them. We can write them down. We can sing them. We can read
them. We can share them. And we should. And that's great.
But sometimes, Lord, we're just so overwhelmed by You. We're
just grateful. It's inexpressible. This is what
the Scripture says when Peter says that we are filled with
a joy that is inexpressible, beyond comparison. Because we don't see You, but
we love You. And we know one day we will see
you, but right now where we see our site is faith, but it will
be face to face today. We see you through your word.
Help us, Lord, to have a passion for your glory, a passion for
your word, a passion for your church. Not the entity or the model or
the organized portion of churchmanship, but father, the people that contain
that comprise rather the church. We thank you for loving us in
spite of us, that we are your children, not just in name, but
in reality. God, I pray for the children
in this room that some of them have heard my words, some of
them have ignored them, some of them aren't able to understand.
But Lord, you plant them in their hearts, Father. For if you don't
plant them, Lord, they will not take root. But whatever happens
with our children, God, we pray they come to faith and give their
lives for the gospel. But your will be done. For your
namesake and for your glory, Lord, not only our children,
but ourselves, we pray. That maybe there are some among
us in this room today who may listen to the sermon years from
now. Who are not yours, Lord, would
you bring them to you? Would you call them to you for
those who you predestined you called? Lord, you know your sheep
and they will hear your voice and they will come. Help us to be faithful, to make
disciples and call people to obey. Let it start within our
own lives, in our own hearts. As we call and remind ourselves
to obey your word. And then let it go out into our
relationships with our spouses and our children and our church
and our communities. graciously exhorting and encouraging as
a community that is sold out for your glory and that is serious
about the gospel father. And until you come, let us be
faithful. And when we are faithless, thank
you that you cannot deny yourself. For it is in Christ that we are
here, it is in Christ that we are saved, it is in Christ that
you carry us through until the day we meet you face to face.
In Jesus name, amen.