Chapter 2, let's see how far
we can get in this, considering the state of being
here. Ephesians chapter 2, it's about to have a word of prayer before
we begin. Our most precious Heavenly Father, we do thank you today
for your mercy and grace. We do thank you for those things
that you have done that we have just sung about in those hymns,
how you saved us by sovereign grace through the bleeding, atoning
work of Jesus Christ. We thank you, Father, for your
mercy and your grace. We thank you for your love. We
thank you, Father, for your providence in life, the way you take care
of us, provide for us, watch over us, keep us secure in you,
the way that you edify us through the fellowship that we will have
like even now. Father, we thank you for the
way that you teach us by your spirit for the increasing of
knowledge of God in Christ. Father, we just pray today as
we come. We meet here this morning and we just pray, Lord, we plead
with you now to meet with us with your spirit to enable us
to not only preach, but to hear and understand, Father, that
you might build us up in the most holy faith. Father, help
us in our worship today, that our hearts might be yearning
for Christ, that we might be desiring to exalt him, Father,
that it might not be just another day of habit coming to church,
Father, but truly our hearts might ascend to the throne of
God where we might bow and lay our praises at the feet of our
king. Father, we pray for our church. We pray, Lord, that you might
continue to minister to us through your spirit, that you might build
us up here, Lord, spiritually, but also physically, Lord. We pray that you would help us
to minister the gospel here in this town. Lord, we pray for
those that believe here in this town, Lord, that you might bring
them to your church, where they might worship and be a part of
the labor and the gospel here. We pray for all our members that
are missing today, Lord. We pray for them. We ask, Lord,
that you just might minister to them where they're at, Lord.
If they're in infirmity, Lord, we pray, if it be your will,
that your hand might touch them, that they might be healed. Lord,
we pray that you might minister to those who are just laying
out because of selfish reasons, Lord, that you just might revive
their heart, renew their desire for fellowship. Lord, if they're
looking for other things in other places and running from the truth
of God, Lord, we pray, Lord, that you would draw them in by
cords of love and that you might reveal to them the truth and
give them a love for the truth, that they might desire it and
that they might be able to feed off of it whenever we come together.
And Father, Lord, we thank you for these that are here already
now today. And we ask, Lord, that you might
bless them, speak to them. I pray that you'd help me in
my infirmity today, Lord, as I'm sick. And Lord, I ask that
you would help my voice, if it be your will, and give me utterance
as long as you desire for me to speak. I pray that you'd help
me to preach these things now, that they might not only be preached
in a cohesive way, but Father, more than anything, that they
might be preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, and Lord,
that it might be the truth that is conveyed. And I ask, Lord,
that you just might glorify your son, Jesus Christ, in all that
we do, in all that we say today, and it's in his name that we
pray, amen. Well, as everybody knows, and
those who are watching, got this cold that's been going around,
or allergies, or whatever it is, and my nose is running away
from me, and my throat's got raw and I'm coughing, and anyway,
so we're gonna try to make it through here as best as we can,
and if I go on a hacking fit, don't worry about it, I'll recuperate
and come back up here, but anyway, Ephesians chapter two, look with
me if you would, Ephesians chapter two, verse
one. And you, who is the you that
is in view here? And you, well, if we look at
the preceding chapter, the opening to this letter to the Ephesians
that Paul, by the Holy Spirit, has written, we'll find that
this is a letter that is written to, look in Ephesians chapter
one, verse one, the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ
Jesus. So this letter is written to
Christians. It's written to primarily the church in Ephesus, but it
applies to all of the faithful in Christ Jesus. So this letter
is a letter to the saints. And it says in verse one, and
you saints, happy quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. And you have he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sin. That has been the state of every
saint, of every child of grace. The elect of God are born into
this world dead in trespasses and sin, and that is because
of our heritage. It is because we come from the
seed of our natural life, and that is Adam. By Adam's sin and
death entered into the world and death passed upon all men.
We are all born into this world spiritually dead and dying physically. All we can do is sin. We cannot
do anything to please God. The flesh is flesh and cannot
please God. The natural man is the natural
man. It is not the spiritual man.
And that is how we are born. And we come into this world dead
in trespasses and sins, not alive unto God. That's the state of
every man, woman, child that enters into this world dead in
trespasses and sin. But it says for the elect of
God, those who have been born from above in the time that God
has borne them from above, that they have been quickened and
you have he quickened. There's a difference between
those who are not quickened and those who are quickened. Those
who are quickened are made alive. What are we made alive to? What
are we made alive in? Well, we're already living, right?
So it's not talking about the physical, but it's talking about
the spiritual. We have been made alive spiritually
who were dead in trespasses and sin, dead spiritually in trespasses
and sins. Look at verse two, where in time
past you walked, according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience." Okay, now see, we're the children
of obedience. We're the elect of God. Those who are the people
of God are the elect of God. And the difference between them
and us is that we were never destined to continue in disobedience. We were destined to have the
obedience of Christ applied to us. and that that disobedience
would not be accounted to us. We have been imputed with the
righteousness of Christ. We have been justified before
God, meaning that all of our sins are not held to our account. And so all of our disobedience,
if we are a child of grace, has been covered by the blood of
Jesus Christ, and that we are justified before God and we do
not walk or we are not accounted as those who are the children
of disobedience. Now, by nature, we walk as those
who are the children of disobedience. At one time, our character, our
nature, the way that we lived looked like the children of disobedience. You couldn't tell us apart. And
that's because the Bible says that out of the same lump God
has made both vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor. Until
that vessel is formed into that vessel of honor, then it cannot
be seen what it is. It came out of the same lump.
The illustration goes back to a potter and his pottery wheel,
and he takes a lump of clay and he puts it on that, Out of that
one lump, he separates off a piece, puts it on that pottery wheel,
and he begins to shape that thing for whatever purpose that he
has designed for it. And he alone is the one who determines
what the use of that vessel is, whether it's gonna be for noble
use or whether it's gonna be for ignoble use. He's the one
who decides whether that vessel is gonna be one that is gonna
last and be used for glory or is gonna be used for wickedness
and destruction. They are vessels of wrath or
vessels of honor, okay? And so God alone determines those
things. But whenever we start out, we
come from that same lump. We come from the lump of clay
of Adam, born into this world by nature, natural, not spiritual,
born by nature against God, unable to keep his laws, unable to do
what's right in God's sight. That's the case of every one
of us until God quickens us. Whenever
God quickens us, we now become alive in the spirit and we now
are able to understand spiritual things. We are able to discern
spiritual things. We are able to do the things
of the spirit. And so at one time, though, we
walk according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. We
have the same spirit as them. Look at verse three, among whom
also we all had our conversation in times
past in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath,
even as others. So that goes with what I've been
saying, that by nature, we, just like them, we're children of
wrath. Now, I want to make a note here,
and you've heard me mention this here before, that this word here,
or this phrase here, that we are by nature, children of wrath,
even as others, that does not mean, and I've heard this said,
especially among the Reformed people, that this means that
we, were under God's wrath until we were born again, and then
God's wrath was removed. Or we were under God's wrath
until we believed, and then once we believed, then God justified
us and removed us from wrath. Brethren, that is an untruth
that is told in a lot of even sovereign grace circles. We were
never under wrath. The child of grace has never,
ever been under the wrath of God. We have been imputed with
the righteousness of Christ, from the foundation of the world
and all spiritual blessings. Look back with me if you would
at Ephesians chapter one. Look at verse three, blessed
be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who have,
past tense, blessed us with all, all inclusive here, not ones
missing, all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. That's where
it took place. In Christ Jesus, so as according
as we were united with Christ, which the Bible says that we
were reunited with him from the foundation of the world, we have
been in him from all of eternity. Okay, we were given to Christ
by the Father before the foundation of the world. We are in union
with him before the foundation of the world. And it says here
that we were blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places. In Christ Jesus, according as
he had chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love. So
the purpose that God has given us this standing or this union
in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world is so that all spiritual
blessings is given to us or is accounted to us as he has chosen
us in him and it's before the foundation of the world. And
what was the purpose? so that we would be without blame before
him and he can love us. The way that God loves us with
an everlasting love is because we have been united with the
Lord Jesus Christ, blessed with all spiritual blessings. And
one of those blessings is the fact that God has not imputed
sin to us. Even before we ever became a
creation, ever before we ever in time sinned or did anything
wrong, the Bible says that we were blessed with all spiritual
blessings and that God has not accounted those to us. The Bible
says that we were never appointed under wrath. The Bible says that
the Lord has not beheld iniquity in Israel or found perverseness
in Jacob. He has not seen that, his eyes
has not seen that. The Bible says, blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth not sin. And so this phrase here
in verse three, who were and were by nature children of wrath
does not mean that we were under wrath. It means that by nature,
just what it says, we are who were by nature the children of
wrath. That means that we are wrathful
children. That means that we had a wrathful
nature towards God. We had a wrath. The Bible says
that we were at enmity. That means that we were enemies.
Yes, we were enemies of God. God was our enemy, we didn't
like him, we didn't like to come under his rule, his reign, under
his law, okay? And so we were enemies of God
and that created an enmity, which is different than enemy. An enmity
means that there is a struggle or that there is a contention
between the two, that we are an enmity, we are separated from
God, we don't wanna be a part of God, and we don't like, we
dislike God, we hold against Him, everything, and we just,
there's nothing there that we like, okay? Now, I know a lot
of people says, well, that wasn't how I felt whenever I was, before
I was saved. I didn't feel that way towards
God. You may not have actively shook your fist in the face of
God and said, I hate you and I'm wrathful against you, but
your whole entire nature of rebelling and sinning against God living
in the flesh is enmity against God. Everything that we were,
our whole entire being, the Bible says that for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous,
no, not one of us. So the very fact that we exist
as an unrighteous being, an unrighteous person, okay, The fact that we
even live in the flesh in nature by who we are born from means
that we are at odds with God. Why? Because we do not have his
righteousness. We are not righteous. We need
a foreign righteousness. We need a righteousness applied
to us before God can accept us, before God can do anything for
us. And so when it says here that
we were by nature, children of wrath, that means that our nature,
that we are born with, when we come out from the womb, comes
out and is wrathful towards God. Okay, so it doesn't mean that
we are under wrath. Look at verse four, but God, who is rich in mercy, and for
his great love wherewith he loved us. Okay, so all this is about
God's love for us. God is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us did something that even when we were dead in sins
have quickened us together with Christ by grace you are saved. Now I want you to pay close attention
to that phrase there. He had quickened us together
with Christ when we were dating sins. That was not something
that we did. We did not quicken ourselves.
We did not ask to be quickened. We did not seek out being quickened.
We were in our sins, trespasses and sins. We were by nature,
we were in a wrathful state towards God, a rebellious state towards
God. We were not seeking God. We were not coming after him,
wanting God. God, in our sins, during our
sinful time, in our sinful actions, in our sinful attitudes towards
God, came and quickened us. We were born from above. We were
born again. If you have been born again,
God did that in his appointed time. He didn't ask you if you
wanted it. He didn't tell you to do something for it. He just
did it. He came in and he quickened you.
He made you spiritually alive. And listen, you can't do anything
about that. You can't stop that. If God decides
that you're his child and he's gonna give you that, he's gonna
come in and do that. And that's what we call irresistible
grace, is the fact that God quickens the sinner, whomever he wants,
whenever he wants, and the sinner doesn't have anything to say
about it, okay? And so God comes and quickens
the sinner, makes them spiritually alive. And he says, even when
we were dead in sins, have quickened us together with Christ. And in parentheses there, we
see by grace you are saved. See, that's what grace is all
about. That's why we talk about irresistible grace, or we talk
about overcoming grace, or we talk about invincible grace. That even though
that we were enemies of God, hated God, was against God, wrathful
against God, sinned against God all the time, The Bible says
that by grace, God did a favor for us, an unmerited favor, one
that we didn't ask for or earn or could ever merit. God did
something by grace. He saved us. He saved us from
that nature. He saved us from that condemnation
that comes upon those in that nature, okay? He saved us by
grace are you saved. And I looked there, and here's
the first occurrence of that in this chapter, is that by grace,
ye are saved. Nothing else, it's only by grace.
Grace is what saves us. If you'll look again back at
Ephesians chapter one, you'll see that we were blessed with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace. See, in grace, God did all those
things for us before the foundation of the world. In 2 Timothy chapter
one, 2 Timothy chapter one and verse nine, he says this, who
has saved us for by grace are ye saved. who have saved us and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his purpose, and here it is, grace. It was God's
will and God's grace that put forth the salvation of his people.
But not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, look at it, which was, past tense, given us. actually in Christ Jesus before
the world began. Brethren, this is a salvation
that comes from something outside of us. It comes by grace, it's
not merited by us. And it was applied to us before
anything ever was created. Now, why do you think you said,
well, why is that? Why did God do it that way? Well,
let's keep on reading. and have raised us up together
and made us sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the
ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. One of the reasons
that God did it this way is so that in the ages to come, he
might show his exceeding riches of grace. God saves us by grace
and not according to anything that we do by a condition. so
that in the ages to come, when everybody stands around the throne,
all of us was one lump, the same nature, the same flesh, the same
spirit, the same enemies of God, the same people. But in grace,
God saved a group of people out of that lump of people who had
the same nature, God loved and saved the people, and they became
something different completely because of what God did. for
them and that is to show His exceeding, what does it say here?
Riches of His grace and His kindness. See, whenever we come to the
judgment, whenever we come to the end of this time and we enter
into eternity and the judgment of the quick and the dead, the
judgment of those who are alive and those who are dead, when
all of humanity, when all of the creation, all is brought
before God, God is gonna display his glory
in its fullness to all those that are there. And in displaying
his fullness of glory, God is gonna show one of the parts of
his glory, which is mercy, grace, kindness, longsuffering, and love. Those
he shows through the vessels prepared for glory, for honor. But God also has the characteristics
of justice and wrath and those he shows through the vessels
of wrath that God has prepared for that thing. To display his
glory and judgment and wrath, he has prepared vessels for that. For those who are to show his
glory and mercy and grace and kindness, he has prepared vessels
for that. And both of those vessels were
equal on footing whenever they were created, whenever they were
made in Adam. And every person that has come
from Adam in every time period, no matter who you are, no matter
what family you're born into, what race you are, no matter
how eloquent you are, no matter how dumb you are, no matter how
rich you are, no matter how poor you are, whether you're a king
or whether you're a servant, It doesn't matter who you are,
everyone comes in out of that one lump and doesn't deserve
anything. But Christ has sectioned off
a group of people that he gives to Christ to show his kindness
to. And so that is the backdrop we
see as we come in here to verse eight, look with me if you would.
For by grace are ye saved. Now that's what he just said
in verse five, right? By grace are you saved? And there
he didn't attach it to anything. He just said, we are saved by
grace. How? Because God quickened us
in our sin. God before the foundation of
the world did something to us and for us that made it different
that whenever we, even though we are sinners, God looked upon
us differently and God treated us differently. And now God has
given us life. And in that life, we are gonna
see a difference in who we are. And so now in verse eight it
says, for by grace are ye saved, but he says through faith. Now,
first thing I want you to notice there, it doesn't say for by
grace are ye saved by faith, okay? We are never saved by faith,
and I hear a lot of people say that a lot of times, that we're
saved by faith. Oh, we're saved by faith. And
they quote this verse, they'll go back, for by grace are ye
saved through faith. Okay, it says through faith,
not by faith. We are not saved by faith, we
are saved through faith. Now, how can you be saved through
faith? Well, first of all, I want you
to understand that this faith, if we go back to Romans, and
as we'll also see here in Ephesians, that this faith is not our faith. It's the faithfulness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I didn't mark my verse here,
it's, excuse me, let me look at it quickly here. Well, he'll come to me, I'm sure. Let's move on. It says, for by
grace are you saved through faith, and that, not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For where is workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them? Now, I want us to look here at
what all this has been leading up to. is to ask the question,
what does the that mean in verse eight? For by grace are you saved
through faith and that, not of yourselves. What is not of ourselves? Well, that's been a debate among
free willers and free gracers for quite a while. The that and
the it. That not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God. What is that talking about? Well,
the freewheeler, and I used to be a freewheeler and I know what
I believed and know what I preached and taught and argued about,
the freewheeler, that word refers back to grace. The freewheeler
says, well, that word goes back to the word grace. That's not
of ourselves, that's from God, only God can give grace. But
the faith, that's definitely of ours. And so we're saved through
our faith in Christ Jesus. So the gift of God is grace,
unmerited favor, okay, that's a gift of God, right? So they
say that the word that refers back to the word grace. They
hold that the natural man has faith to place in the correct
object, which is Christ. See, this is what I used to teach.
I taught that we have faith, that all men have faith, and
that that faith just needs to be placed in the right object.
We're placing our faith in ourself and in our words, but we need
to place our faith in the object, which is Christ Jesus, and trust
in Him, and then that now becomes saving faith, and God will quicken
us, save us, forgive us, if we put our faith in Him and
trust in Him, And by that faith, then God recognizes that faith
and says, okay, and then rewards us with salvation. They hold this view because they
deny, okay, they deny that quickening precedes or comes before faith. They believe faith comes first,
then you're born again, then you're saved, okay. Their theology
dictates that they interpret this verse in such a way. See,
they don't believe that God saves people apart from their will,
their decision, their accepting. And so this shows exactly how
easy it is to hold to incorrect theology when a tradition of
man or interpretation of man is held above the truth and the
consistency of the scriptures. The scriptures here, in every
bit has made it clear that salvation was by grace and that salvation
was given before the foundation of the world. But yet they wanna
make it a salvation that happens in time, whenever they respond
to the gospel, whenever they believe on Jesus Christ, whenever
they make a decision, come down to the front of a church, down
an aisle, shake the preacher's hand, go through a baptistry,
become a member of a church, whatever the condition is. The free willer also, and I did
as well, will refer to the Greek and its grammar to prove the
point. Now if you look there in that verse, look at the word
that. The word that there, in the Greek, is a neutered word,
and the word faith is a feminine word. The word that is neutered,
the word faith is feminine. What they'll say is they'll use
the grammar and they'll say, aha, there you go. That is neuter
and faith is feminine. So that cannot refer to faith,
it refers to grace. See, in the Greek grammar, you
can't have neuter talking about a word that's in the feminine,
okay? Now, I will say this, that is
true. That is exactly true. But here's
the thing, they don't go on further. They don't dive into this further
or reveal the rest of it. That is, in the neuter, faith
is in the feminine, and neither one of those agree. However, the fact remains that the whole
phrase is in that same neutered and feminine juxtaposition. The freewheeler says, well, if
it's the grace then that is not of ourselves, then it's the gift
of God, so then faith is something that we can exercise and do. But whenever we look, Things
that are involved in this is grace, saved, and faith are all
being referred to in the that. See, if the free will would be
honest with the text and with the Greek grammar, they would
tell us this. because it doesn't fit their
theological scheme. Neither faith nor grace agrees
with the neuter that. Nothing in that whole phrase
agrees with that. But brother, since grace does
not match in gender, what does the that refer to as the gift
of God? The phrase, are you saved, is
a masculine participle. I know this is kind of getting
into intellectual stuff and I'm not a whole lot for that, but
I want to show you from this, this is a meaning, what a lot
of people says that it means. The phrase, are you saved, is
a masculine participle. So there's only one way that
you can interpret this verse due to this grammatical construction.
The neuter demonstrative pronoun that refers to the whole preceding
phrase. Grace, salvation, and faith then
become that which the that refers to, okay? Grace is not of ourself. Faith is not of ourself. Salvation
is not of ourselves. Every one of those are gifts
of God and not of ourselves. Now, we understand grace to be
unmerited favor, correct? Everybody heard that? Grace is
unmerited favor? What does unmerited favor mean?
What does unmerited mean? Do what? Not deserved, not earned. Okay, that's what grace is. And the Bible says that if it's
of grace, then it's not of works. But if it's of works, then it's
not of grace. They're mutually opposites. You can't have something that's
grace and works. You've heard me give the illustration
here before that whenever somebody works for something and they
are given something in trade for that work, then what does
that become? It becomes a wage, right? I go to Ozark Imaging. and I
work for them, and in return, they give me a paycheck every
two weeks. Okay, well whenever I get that
paycheck, I do not go to my employer and say, well thank you very
much, that was so gracious of you to give me that, I just didn't
deserve that. No, I worked all those hours,
drove all those miles, fixed all those machines, took care
of all those customers, And in return for that, the employer
says, since you did that for me, I'm gonna pay you for that.
Okay, it's a wage. I work for a wage. Okay, so it's
not grace. So for God to give us a gift,
it has to be free from any entanglement of anything that we do, otherwise
it's a wage. We earned it. So if by faith
we are saved, then faith now becomes the work that must be
done, and so it is no longer of grace. If it's righteous living,
then righteous living now becomes the work, and it now becomes
a wage, long as you do good works. If it's baptism, now baptism
is the work, and it's not by grace, it's by the work of baptism,
or the work of church membership, All those things are important,
but brethren, they cannot save us. We are not saved by anything
that we do in a condition. If grace, unmerited favor, cannot
be given unless one exercises their natural faith, as the freewheeler
says, then grace is not unmerited. And I know a lot of Reformed
people that say that we are justified by faith alone, which is a wrong
concept, okay? It is a wrong concept. We are
not justified by faith alone. We are justified by Christ alone. And it is shown through faith. It is received by faith. But
if God is waiting to justify us whenever we trust him or have
faith in Christ, then that is what is needed to earn justification. And I know people wanna argue
about that. They wanna get into semantics and say, well, he did
justify us, but he can't declare us just until we, okay, well,
why can't God declare you just if he's not basing it upon your
faith and he's basing it upon Christ? Why does he have to wait
for you to exercise that? Because he knows when he's gonna
quicken you. God doesn't need to wait for
our activity to tell us who we are. To treat us as we are. to accept
us as we are. We are His, we are in Christ
Jesus, blessed with all spiritual blessings, justified before God,
sanctified and set apart for the use of God as a vessel of
honor. You don't need us to declare
that in our faith before He can determine that or to conceive
us as that being that in His eyes. See, no matter what the freewheeler
says about faith not being a work, and I hear that all the time,
well, we believe that it is by faith, but faith is not a work.
It says it right there. For by grace you are saved through
your faith, and that not of yourselves, but the gifts of God, not of
works. So obviously faith can't be of works, it says not of works,
because it's by faith. If you do it by faith, then it's
not of works, because faith isn't a work. That's not true. Faith
is a work. The Bible teaches that faith
is a work. Remember whenever the people came to Jesus and
they said, what must we do to do the works of God? And what
did Jesus tell them? This is the work of God that
you believe on him. Faith is a work. The only thing
is, is natural faith cannot ever do anything in this. And spiritual
faith, that matter. If it's based upon spiritual
faith, then it's still a work. See, not only does the scripture
teach faith is a work, it also teaches that faith, or the kind
that receives the spiritual, divine faith, the kind that receives
the gospel, is a gift and it's not from us, okay? So if it's not from us, if it's
a gift to us, then we can't exercise it to get anything. The free
willer insists that faith is not a work, but whenever you
take human natural faith as the condition that you now have a
different faith than the faith spoken of in scripture that receives
gospel salvation. Now, let's look at a few verses
here so we're not just kind of running willy-nilly all over
this. We gotta understand that those who are born natural in
nature and spiritually dead, as we just talked about, that
until one is born from above, given spiritual life, there's
only natural faith, faith of the flesh. Look with me if you
would at Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight, we're just
about done. I should say I'm just about done. Romans chapter eight, and look
with me if you would at verse five. For they that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because
the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are
in the flesh cannot please God. Those who are in the flesh, only
mind the things of the flesh. So to say that a person who is
not born again already can mind the things of the spirit, then
they're contradicting what the Bible says. Their gospel is a
false gospel. The scripture also declares the
truth about our natural nature when it says, look with me now,
turn if you would over to 1 Corinthians. I know these are verses that
we have looked at many times, Very important verses for us
to know and understand. Part of preaching the gospel
is to understand our need and our inability. Look at verse
14. But the natural man, and who
is this in contrast to? You have the natural man, and
who's on the opposite side? The spiritual man, right? That's
what we're contrasting here. In this chapter, if we go back
just a few verses, we'll see that the scripture says that
in verse 10, but God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit, for
the spirit searches all things, and indeed things of God. For
what man knoweth the things of man sayeth the spirit of man
which is in him. Even so, the things of God knoweth
no man, but the spirit of God. Now, we have received not the
spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are, what? Freely given to us. Those things that was given to
us in Ephesians, all those spiritual blessings in heavenly places,
being born from above, being quickened together with Christ
Jesus, the whole gospel. We only can know that if we have
the spirit of God living in us to testify and to give credence
to those things. The natural man, it says there,
receives not the things of the Spirit. Why? For they are spiritually
discerned. The natural man receives not
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto
him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually
discerned. Okay, so unless a man is spiritual,
he cannot discern spiritual things. So to say that one can come before
they are born again and understand the gospel or to believe on Jesus
Christ, trust in Jesus Christ, is to say something contradictory
to what the scripture, no matter how many verses you want to dig
up about believe and receive or to accept or to come or all
those things, all those are in light of the fact that one must
first be made spiritually discerning to have that desire and appetite
to come. See, this right here tells us
in verse 14, the natural man receives not things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolish unto him, neither can he. It's
an inability. There is a spiritual inability
until one is made spiritual. So brethren, this is the facts
that God has given us about our depravity in our natural state.
There is a spiritual inability to see, to hear, to believe spiritual
things, for our heart to rest upon them as truth? The scripture says the reason
is because the things of the spirit are spiritually discerned.
So then natural faith, just changing the object from myself to Christ,
is not gonna work. Can't ever do anything for anybody. Because there is a natural faith
and there is a spiritual faith. The natural faith will only mind
the things of the flesh and cannot receive the spiritual things.
But those who are made spiritual mind spiritual things and can
receive the things of the spirit because they have been given
the mind of Christ. So, with that being said, look
with me. I want you to see this yourself
in the scriptures. Not that I'm just, you know,
this is not just preacher speak or some sort of Calvinist teaching
or that it is some theological construction that I've made from
some seminary or something like that, look with me if you would
at 2 Thessalonians chapter three. We see a truth or a fact of scripture
here in this. Look at your word, verse one.
Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may
have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you, and that
we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for all men have
not faith. The Bible here says that All
men do not have faith. You say, well, wait a minute,
that's not true. There are some men that have faith. No, no,
no. He says, all men have not faith as it pertains to the things
of the spirit of God. This is what he's talking about.
He's talking about these men, unreasonable men, wicked men,
they have a faith that's a natural faith. It's not a spiritual faith
because if it was a spiritual faith, They would not be persecuting
those who are preaching the truth, okay? They wouldn't be persecuting
Paul and all the apostles and all the evangelists that were
preaching and deliver for them to have to be delivered from.
The unreasonable and wicked men. But it says, for all men have
not faith. So that tells me, that there is something about
faith that is different in the child of grace than it is in
the one who is not a child of grace. The faith that is found
in them is not a faith that understands and receives the things of God.
It is a different faith, and not all men have that faith that
is from above. The kind of faith that comes
as a gift, a gift that is spiritual, this gift of faith This gift
is the faith of Christ. Now this word, this phrase, faith
of Christ, it can mean two things. Primarily though, it speaks of
the faith of Christ, Christ's faith, his faithful work in what
he did whenever he came. He came and was obedient to the
Father in all things. He obeyed in every way. He kept
the law 100%. Not one thing was ever broken
in mind or in action. Christ lived an impeccable, impeccable
life. He never sinned. There was no
sin found in him. There was no guile found in him.
Whenever he went to the cross and took upon our sins, he didn't
go as a sinner who was being punished for sin. He went as
a spotless lamb, free of all sin and accusations that God
himself looked upon him as sinlessly perfect. But he took upon our
sins, but he was not sinful. And so Christ and his work of
faith, his obedience to God and his following through in the
covenant by taking upon our sins in our place is the faith of
Christ. He trusted God to keep the covenant
that he made with God in keeping his people. And so Christ fulfilled this
part of that covenant and had faith that God would fulfill
all the covenant. And so by that faithfulness,
we are saved. By that faith, we are saved. But that faith, that divine faith,
which is foreign, is not been, the faith of the nature, the
natural man, but the spiritual faith that is a gift from above,
that's given to us so that we might know what has been freely
given to us. That's the faith that comes to
us that looks to Christ alone, that trusts Christ alone, who
believes and hopes in Christ alone and not in our works. So that's how we are saved through
faith. We're saved through his faith
that accomplished our salvation. And we're saved in the knowledge
or the realization of our salvation by the faith that is given to
us in the new birth. And that faith is not the natural
faith that we had before we was born again. It's a faith that's
formed from us. It's one that's given to us.
It's by Christ's faith apart from and outside of the natural
man. And so if that's the case, then no one has room to boast.
Why? Because salvation was secured by Christ outside of us by his
faithfulness. And by us trusting in him, our
trusting can't even be said to be our work because faith was
given to us as a gift. So no man can boast because the
action of salvation and the believing of salvation, both of those things
are gifts of God and does not have a condition on us. So we
cannot boast. That's why the Bible says that
it may be the gift. Look with me, if you would, back
at Romans chapter four. Romans chapter four. The scripture says, therefore
it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end of the
promise might be sure to all the seed. Okay, this is how the
promise is guaranteed to all the seed. How do we know that
all the seed is gonna receive the promise? Well, because faith
has nothing to do with their ability. faith has nothing to
do with their actions. It has to do with the work of
Christ apart from them. That's what guaranteed that salvation.
That's what was the grounds of that salvation. That's what God
was looking for to say justify. But for us to believe it and
receive it and to take it as our own, even that, it doesn't
depend upon our knowledge or upon our understanding or upon
our intellect or upon our working because that faith is instilled
in us in the new birth and it comes to us as a gift and so
we are able to clutch onto those promises as the seed of Christ
and that's guaranteed. Why? Because it isn't something
that we work for. It isn't something that we strum
up in our own flesh. So in closing, I want to say,
brethren, we have been given the mind of Christ to know God,
and we have been given the faith of Christ to receive those things
freely given to us by God. And that both those gifts come
from above and are found outside of the natural land. They come
in the new birth, and have been given in God's precious and free
grace. And that is not in yourselves. It is a gift of God. Any questions,
comments, corrections? All right, let's bow that word
prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you again for
your word. We thank you for this Bible,
Lord, that we have before us to tell us the truth about ourselves
and about who God is and about what Christ has done. We thank
you for this day that we've had together and how we have been
able to come and to gather around it, Lord. We thank you for the
time that we've been here, and we pray that all things have
been pleasing to you. I pray that if there's any one
of your children that are here this morning that has not yet
been converted and given faith, Lord, that you might do that.
Lord, I pray for my children, for all those, Lord, that are
around us, our family, our friends. We pray, Lord, that they might
be brought to believe the truth, to believe upon Christ, not in
a natural way, but in a true and divine way. And Father Lord,
I pray that you might work among us, that you might be exalted
in all that we do and say here. We ask you to bless the food
we're about to eat now, and it's in Jesus' name that we pray,
amen.