Open your Bibles, if you would,
to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. This is one of my favorite portions
of scripture. The whole book of Ephesians is
an absolutely amazing letter. I was thinking about this before
service tonight. I was thinking about how In chapter
one, we see the unfolding of God's sovereign plan and purpose
for his people. We're going to see God planning
salvation in eternity, God executing salvation in time, and then we, who are the blood-bought,
born-again saint of God, regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God and
we will see tonight the whole Trinity in action in our salvation
and we should be able to leave here tonight proclaiming the
same words as Jonah which we which we do salvations of the
Lord it's so clear I don't know if there's a clearer passage
in the New Testament than Ephesians chapter 1 which brings forth
the fact that salvation is of the Lord, the fact that He is
the only Savior, the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has purchased
His people, and the fact that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit
of promise. Now, think of this. I was thinking
about this too. Let's put ourselves tonight in
the place of the Ephesian church, just in our minds. We are living
in a city, a huge city, of Ephesus. There's idol worship all around
us. In fact, there's a temple to Diana, a false pagan god,
huge temple. So we're in the midst of all
this idol worship. Well, we're in the midst of all
this idol worship, too, aren't we? even today. See, nothing new under the sun,
is there? Nothing new under the sun. We're in the same situation.
So let this letter, let's read this letter, and I know it's
just our mindset, though, thinking of how they felt when they received
this wondrous letter from the Apostle Paul. And this letter
is addressed to a group of believers who are rich beyond measure in
Christ, and Paul will bring that forth. They may be poor and in
their position in life they may not be, but each of the believers
is rich abundantly in Christ. As I said, we are the most, you
know, Bill Gates, he's got a lot of money in this world, but he's
got no spiritual blessings in Christ. And there's, we live in an area
with the big three where there's owners of those companies, CEOs
that make millions of dollars a year. So they have a lot, they
have a lot financially, but they're bankrupt spiritually. We are rich, beloved. We are
rich beyond compare. And we're mercy beggars as we
live in this world. And sometimes when the things
of this world can come upon us, we can lose sight of how rich
we are in Christ. And I'm not talking that health,
wealth, prosperity garbage that people talk about. That's the
most ridiculous thing. I get so upset about that stuff. I'm talking about being rich
in Christ. rich in Christ and him alone and Paul Paul is gonna send this them
this letter by inspirational Holy Spirit of God to remember
the true author of this letters the Holy Spirit of God so with
that in our minds let's let's look at chapter one Scripture
says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Look
at that. So the first thing we see, Paul
is not an apostle by man, but he's an apostle by the will of
God. Right off the bat, he gives glory to our great God. He says,
I'm nothing. Remember what he says? I am what
I am by the grace of God. So he's giving glory to God right
away. He's saying, I am an apostle. And there's no apostles today.
I was out for breakfast with someone this week, and this lady
said she was an apostle. And, well, that's not a good
thing to say around me. And I told her, no. I said, you're
lying. There's no more apostles. And
you're deceived. You're deceived. And even the
fellow with me said the same thing. And she just quietly couldn't
defend herself. There are no apostles nowadays.
There's none. No. There was 12 apostles. One of
them was the devil. And then there was a 13th one,
which brings us back to 12. which was Paul, the one who's
writing this letter. And he says this, look at this.
To the saints, to those who are born again by the Holy Spirit
of God. And look at that, we're called saints. I remember the
first time I told my mom I was a saint to God, she about, she about fell over. She was
a Catholic. Oh, don't ever say that. I said,
but the Bible says I'm a saint. That's what we are, beloved.
That's what we are. We're holy in Christ. We don't
feel that way, but it states this, to the saints, which are
at Ephesus, and to the faithful, and remember I mentioned this
morning about being in Christ? To the faithful in Christ Jesus.
That's our state. He's writing to those who are
born-again, blood-washed believers who are in Christ by the will
of God. Grace be to you in peace. Grace
always precedes peace. There will be no peace without
grace. Grace always precedes peace. We have peace with God by the
grace of God in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God. There's no grace coming from
God, there's no peace. And look what it says, from God
our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. It comes from the
Father through Christ. He's the conduit to us, to us. And notice, we're gonna see some
facts brought forth here. These are not up for debate. There's no debate in the word
of God. It says here. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That's a statement
of fact, look at that. Who hath blessed us, it's past
tense. When hath he blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in Christ? In eternity. How do we know that? Well, look at the next verse.
And notice again in verse three, in Christ. We could name every message that
we ever preach as gospel preachers in Christ. Literally, we could
do that. Because if you're not in Christ,
you don't have all those spiritual blessings. Now look at this. According as he hath chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world. How can people
deny election? It's so clear there, isn't it?
God himself, Look at this, let's tie verse three and four together.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. When? According as he, that being God
spoken of, the Father, in verse three. According as he hath chosen
us in him, in Christ. Again, in Christ. In Christ. When? Before the foundation of
the world. before the foundation of the
world. That means it has nothing to
do with us as far as earning it, right? As far as even marrying it. Do
you see that? Isn't that wondrous? It's all
about Him. We're seeing here the unfolding
of God's sovereign plan and eternity in this portion. He's the one
who chose us. He did it in eternity. He chose
us in Christ, in whom we have all spiritual blessings. And
all we are is receivers. We know that from chapter two,
right? For by grace you say through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. Oh my, it's
wonderful. it just gets better to just gets
better according as he had chosen us
in their chosen their means chosen it means to choose in the Greek chosen us in him in Christ when
before the foundation of the world why that we should be holy
and without blame before him in love that we should be able
to stand in the presence of God forever Forever. Remember over in Colossians
it says that he has made us meet? That means qualified. He's qualified
us for heaven, beloved. How? In Christ. Nowhere else. It's all wrapped
up in him. And that's why the preaching
of the righteousness of Christ is so important. That's why the
preaching of the righteousness of Christ alone is so important,
because we see clearly that our righteousness has nothing to
do with our salvation. As a matter of fact, it disqualifies
us, doesn't it? Isn't that amazing? So we're
gonna see here, we're seeing here, this is all planned and
purposed by God here. And Luke goes on to say this. having predestinated us into
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of whose will? Where's man's will? Oh, people always say. People always say, well, you
have to make a decision. It's all about your will. Whose will was it that we be
in Christ? According to the scripture here,
it's God's will, isn't it? And it's according to His good pleasure.
That's wonderful. That's absolutely wonderful.
He chose us in Christ because, as I said this morning, it pleased
Him to do so. According to His good pleasure.
It was His good pleasure to save you. As I said this morning,
that's something we're never gonna get over. Absolutely never
will we get over that fact. As a matter of fact, again, in
heaven we sing worthy is the lamb, don't we? Giving him all
the glory, honor, and praise. All of it. All of it. And back
up to verse four again, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. We're sinners to the core. We're
sinners even after we're saved. But in Christ, we're made holy. We're accepted by God in Christ. Look at that, he predestinated
us. What? Unto adoption. Now we're sons of God. Unto adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself. We're the bride of Christ,
beloved. We're his. According to the good
pleasure of his will. We could just sit right there.
See, God's will is supreme. There's only one real free will
in this whole universe. It's God's. He can do whatever
he pleases, right? He says, I'll have mercy on whom
I'll have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion. We can't say anything, can we?
Except when the Lord saves us, we say, glory to your name, oh
Lord. Oh, hallelujah. Praise your name. But it's all him. It's all him. Now look at this, verse six.
To the praise of the glory of his grace. wherein he hath made
us accepted in the beloved. Now we're transitioning to that
which occurred in time. So we see all there, the sovereign
will and grace of God has planned salvation's plan in Christ. And we've seen from those first
six verses that it's all in him. And what can we do but say to
the praise of the glory of his grace? It's the grace of God. And we see here at work the grace
of God. So the grace of God in Christ,
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had planned and purposed that
a people would be saved in Christ. Again, the key meaning, in Christ. Now let's see it being executed.
We saw this morning that our Savior came to this world as
a submissive servant, Jehovah's servant. And he lived that perfect
life. And then he died on Calvary's
cross, and he said, I laid down my life for the sheep, didn't
he? And he did that. Look at this. In whom we have
redemption. Who? Christ. In Christ. Again, in Christ. In whom we
have redemption. Now is it in whom we have redemption
if we decide to follow Jesus? Doesn't say that, does it? It says in whom we have redemption.
even the forgiveness of sins. Look at that. Through his blood, there is the
key, in whom we have redemption, through his blood. So now we
see salvation's plan transitioning to a time of Calvary's cross,
when our great God became a man. And when he died on Calvary's
cross, to save his people from their sins. It says, through
his blood. There's salvation no other way. There's no salvation
in Mary. There's no salvation in Buddha.
There's no salvation in Muhammad. There's no salvation in any other
thing or person. There's only salvation in and
through the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's through his precious
blood that was shed for his people. Why? For the forgiveness of our
sins. Those are what we own, isn't
it? forgiveness of our sins look at this according to the riches
of his grace so we see we've seen here that we're saved according
to the good pleasure of his will God's will and now we see here
that Christ came to this world died on the cross shed his precious
blood to redeem us from all our sins and it's all according to
the riches of God's grace unmerited favor unmerited favor it's absolutely
incredible Wherein he hath abounded toward us, his grace has abounded
toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Why in all wisdom and prudence?
Because it's all part of salvation's plan for maternity. And our great
God, our great God, he's wise, isn't
he? He's full of grace. Look at this. Look at verse 9.
Heaven made known unto us the mystery of his will. According to his good pleasure
again, which he hath, what? Purposed in himself. When did
he purpose all this in himself? Well, we see back there in verse
4, right? According as he had chosen us
in him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love. And he's revealed that plan to
us, hasn't he? I didn't know any of this. If
you had talked to me 20 years ago about this, I would have had no idea what you
were talking about. When I was 30 years old, I'd
have had no idea what you were talking about. I was blind as
a white goose in a snowstorm. I had no clue. No clue at all. But now, by the grace of God,
I know this. And I don't know it by my own
doing. And neither do you, who are God's
people. You only know it as I only know
it because God's revealed it to us. And now we rejoice in
it, don't we? And we give God all the glory.
And we see here, he purposed that in himself. according to
his good pleasure. It's incredible. Look at this,
that in the dispensation of the fullness of time, he might gather
together in one all things in Christ, which are both, let me
start that verse again, verse 10. That in the dispensation
of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one
all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on
earth, even in him. Verse 11, in whom also we have
obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his
own will. Now we see a theme here, don't
we? God does what he wills. He doesn't do what we will, but he does what he wills, doesn't
he? It's so clear. And he does what he wills in
heaven and in earth. Look at verse 12, that we should
be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. Now we come to our time. A time
of love for every believer. What's the time of love? When
God the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to us. That's the time of love. Look at verse 13. whom ye also
trusted after ye heard what? The word of truth. The gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel of how Christ came
to save sinners. The gospel that at one time fell
upon deaf ears with us. We heard it, but we didn't hear
it. All we heard was the words of the preacher. But now we hear it by the power
of the Holy Spirit of God. And look what Paul writes there.
In whom ye also trusted. After that, ye heard the word
of truth, the gospel of what? Your salvation. The gospel's the gospel of our
salvation for each individual believer, isn't it? God saved me. He saved me by revealing Christ
to me through the preaching of the gospel. Is it so for you? Amen, eh? He did that, and that's
what Paul's bringing forth here. The gospel of your salvation,
it's not ours that we didn't do anything. It's God's salvation,
but we've received it by the grace of God and the mercy of
God, haven't we? And we trusted Christ by the grace and mercy
of God, because we know that God's given us faith to believe.
He made us will in the day of his power. It's all about him. This chapter is all about what
God's done. about what he's done in whom also after that she believed
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise there's regeneration
by the Holy Spirit of God what did our King say you must be
born again you must be born again there
it is if you're not born again you
will not see the kingdom of heaven It says, you must be born again. Our master said that in John
chapter three, and look at that. You were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. See that word sealed there? I've mentioned
this before, but I'm gonna mention it again. In the ancient days, when boxes were put on cargo
ships, there was a seal placed on them.
so brother jim if you had some boxes that were going on a certain
ship they would be sealed with your
seal brother dan if you had some boxes going on the ship same
ship how would you tell the boxes apart if there wasn't a seal
so your boxes would be sealed with your seal and i got some
boxes too, a couple boxes thrown there too And they're sealed
with my seal. So we get to the next port, and
Brother Jim takes his boxes, Brother Dan takes his boxes,
and I take my boxes. And the only reason we know the
difference between the boxes is because of that seal. That's
what that seal means. We're sealed by the Holy Spirit
of promise, beloved. That's wondrous. absolutely were
his were marked were marked beloved as his how well by the precious
blood of Christ look at verse 14 which is the
earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase
possession under the praise of his glory Wherefore I also, verse 15, after
I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love to all the
saints, ceased not to give thanks for you, making mention of you
in my prayers. So Paul continuously prayed for
God's people. When he heard of their faith,
he rejoiced. He rejoiced, just like when we
heard that the Lord had saved Brother Bill Kirkpatrick. I know you guys had been praying
for him for years, and the Lord saved him. We rejoiced, didn't
we, when we heard that wondrous news, and we gave God all the
glory. Well, Paul had heard of the Ephesians'
faith, and he's giving glory to God for it. He's giving glory
to God. Look at verse 17. that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto
you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge
of him. The eyes of your understanding
being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his
calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance
is in the saints. See, now we know something. Now
we know something we didn't know before. We know Christ. Because he's revealed himself
to us by his grace and by his mercy. And we have an inheritance,
beloved, that cannot be defiled by anything
we do. Isn't that incredible? Because
if you're sealed, think of this, If that box is sealed to yours,
Jim, Brother Jim, that's your box. It's not mine. It's not Dan's. It's yours. It's yours. We are sealed by
the Holy Spirit to promise where it is. And we have an inheritance,
again, that cannot be corrupted. Because why? It's in Christ.
Now, if it was of our doing, We would mess it up so bad, oh
my gosh. It'd be gone in probably, what,
two seconds. Not even that, right? But do
you see the assurance we have? Do you see the security we have
in Christ? Let us be constantly reminded
of that. Let us remind ourselves of that. That we are to look to Christ
and him alone. Look at this in verse 19, too.
That we may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power
to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power. We were dead. We know that now. We were spiritually dead, graveyard
dead. We couldn't make ourselves alive. But now we're alive. by the regenerating
power of the Holy Spirit of God. Now we know about His power,
don't we? We've experienced it. We've experienced the life-giving
power of God, the Holy Spirit. And now we know Him. Now we know Him. And now we proclaim
He can save whomever He wills, can't He? He can save whoever He wills.
Oh, I pray, if it be God's will, and you don't know Him, you who
will hear this message, oh, I pray that God give you life, that
you be born again by the Holy Spirit of God, if it be His will.
And look at this, look in verse 19. And what is the exceeding
greatness of His power to us, to you who believe? His power
has been exercised on you and me, as blood-washed believers. He's manifested His mighty power
to us. And then it closes in there again,
according to the working of His mighty power. Regeneration. Redemption. Justification. Adoption. All by the mighty power of God. Do you notice that in this passage
there's nothing about what we do? Do you notice that Paul is just
proclaiming what God's done? That's because salvation's of
the Lord. It's not by anything we do. It's wonderful. Look at verse 20. Which he wrought,
again, look at these two words again, in Christ. There's a key. Do you notice the theme again?
Paul is continuously bringing forth before them, in Christ. In Christ. when he raised him
from the dead. So we saw God's power exercised
when Christ was raised from the dead and sat him at his own right
hand in the heavenly places. And we know that that same power
raised us from our spiritual deadness. That same power was
exercised. above all principality and power
and might and dominion in every name that is named not only in
this world or that that being age but also in that which is
to come now notice that where's Christ right now he's far above
all principality power and might and dominion so our Savior the
one who keeps us by his grace is far above anything in this
world that can touch us He's far above anything that's
visible or invisible that can touch us. He's over all. Why do I fret
then? The flesh. The flesh, the flesh, the flesh. Look at that magnificent statement. far above all principality and
power and might. There's nothing that is stronger
than our God. You hear religious people talking,
and you think after you listen to them for a little while that
they really believe Satan's stronger than God. But that's not true. We know from the book of Job,
Satan can only do what God allows. He's restrained. Like Henry Mahan said, he's like
a dog on a leash. Far above all principality and
power and might and dominion. That's everything. Anything in this world, anything
visible or invisible, he's over it all. He's in glory right now. In every name, not his name.
Think of all the great names that have went through history
in this world. No great names, just Caesar, Augustus, Alexander, all these great names
that the world just holds up and vaults up in renown. Nothing compared to Christ. He's
far above them all. He's far above them all, the
Lord. He's the King of kings, and he's the Lord of lords. And
this scripture declares that. He's above them all. that where
is he right now well he sat down works finished and he did it
all we see here in this whole chapter
God did it all no wonder Paul penned in the
second in the in the second chapter for by grace he is saved through
faith and that not yourselves it's a gift of God we didn't
do nothing to earn it We didn't do nothing to merit it. If we
got what we deserved, we'd be in hell. This is pure grace. This is a miserable grace before
us. And look at that, not only in
this world or age, but also in that which is to come. There has never been and there
never will be anyone who can usurp God from his throne. He's
almighty. And he won't leave his throne
either, will he? No way. You've heard me say, empires
of Rose, Babylon, oh, great empire. Rome, militarily Rome. Before
Rome, Greek just conquered vast swaths of land. And then the Roman army comes
in right behind them. conquering more land. But our
Lord is far above all. And all those empires, where
are they now? They're gone. We read about them
in the history books. They were raised up for a time,
and when they fulfilled their purpose, they were gone. What did our God say about Pharaoh? That he raised him up for this
purpose. My oh my. And look at verse 22, and let
us take comfort here. And it put all things under his
feet, under Christ's feet. Our Savior, the one who keeps
us, the one who saved us, and the one who keeps us, has all
power. all of it and gave him to be the head over
all things to the church he's the head and where the body and
what's it save the church which is the body the fullness of him
that filleth all in all so in this portion of scripture we've
looked at tonight we've seen the unfolding of God's oven plan
We've seen it executed in time, when Christ redeemed us from
the curse of the law. We've seen the Holy Spirit sealing
us. We're His. We're God's. And we've seen it's all by His
almighty power. Lord, help us not to doubt. Help
us to look to Thee. We live in a time now like that. I was talking to his sister this
morning, and she said, when I mentioned about the ebb and flow, right,
she brought a great point out. She said, there's the ebb and
flow, but where's the constant? That's Christ right through it
all. Oh my, I was so blessed. I wish she had told me that before
the message. Oh my, isn't that true? It's true, isn't it? He's the constant, beloved. Let
us keep looking to him. Let us keep looking. Heavenly
Father, we thank you again for your mercy and your grace. Thank
you for allowing us to look into thy word tonight. Oh, it's wondrous. As we see these wondrous truths
set before us. Lord Jesus, we are just so thankful
as your people. Thankful that we were included
in salvation's plan. And Father, as we looked at how
you planned and purposed salvation for we who are your people in
Christ, And we saw that it was all according to thy good pleasure. Oh, Lord, I don't think we're
ever going to get over that. I don't think we ever will. And we thank thee, Lord Jesus,
for coming to this earth and dying for your sheep, redeeming
us with thy precious blood. And we thank thee, Holy Spirit,
for regenerating us. Quickening us making us alive
in Christ. Oh It's wondrous It's wondrous
Help us Lord Jesus to think upon these wonderful truths, which
we've looked at this morning and tonight Through this week
and give us grace as needed through this week in Jesus name. Amen