All right. It's good to see everybody this
morning. Well, turn with me if you would
over into your Gadsby hymn books this morning. Got a couple of
songs here that I've picked out. And we'll sing those two, and
then if anybody has any requests, then we'll take a couple of requests
for hymns, if you have one. And before we get back into our
study this morning, turn, if you would, to hymn number 195,
hymn 195. In 195, Grace Exalted in the
New Birth. We started last week in the second
hour on the topic of overcoming grace. And we'll be discussing
that. Good morning. We'll be discussing
that some more today. But I thought we might sing about
that this morning. 195, Grace Exalted in the New
Birth. We'll sing this to the tune of the doxology. Assist my soul, my heavenly King,
Thy everlasting love to sing, And joyful spread Thy praise
abroad, As one through grace that's born of God. No, it was not the will of man
My soul's new heavenly birth began Nor will nor power of flesh
and blood That turned my heart from sin to God Herein let self
be all obeyed, And sovereign love alone confessed. This be my song through all the
road, That born I am, and born of God. O may this love my soul
constrain To make returns of love again That I, while earth
is my abode May live like one that's born of God May I thy
praises daily show Who has created all things new And washed me
in a Savior's blood To prove that I'm a son of God And when
the appointed hour shall come That thou wilt call me to my
home Joyful I'll pass the chilling flood and I as one that's born
of God. Then shall my soul triumphant
rise to its blessed mansion in the skies and in that glorious
bright abode. Sing, then, as one that's born
of God. Amen. What a beautiful hymn.
Don't know exactly who that is that wrote that. S. Medley is
what's attributed to it, but I don't know who that is. We'll
look back just one hymn to 194. 194, Grace Invincible. We'll sing this to the tune of
Joy to the World, Grace Invincible. Hail mighty Jesus, how divine
is thy victorious sword! Thou stoutest rebel, must resign
at thy commanding word, at thy commanding word, at thy, at thy
commanding word. Deep are the wounds thy arrows
give. They pierce the heartest heart. Thy smiles of grace the slain
revive. And joy succeeds to smart. And joy succeeds to smart. And joy, and joy succeeds to
smart. Still gird thy word upon thy
thigh, Right with majestic sway. Go forth, sweet prince, triumphantly,
And make thy foes obey, And make thy foes obey, And make, and
make thy foes obey. and when thy victories are complete,
when all the chosen race shall round the throne of glory meet,
to sing thy conquering grace, to sing thy conquering grace,
to sing, to sing thy conquering grace. O may my blood wash soul
be found Among that favored band And I with them thy praise will
sound Throughout Emmanuel's land Throughout Emmanuel's land Throughout,
throughout Emmanuel's land When upon life's billows you
are tempest-tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all
is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, And it
will surprise you what the Lord hath done. Count your blessings,
name them one by one, Count your blessings, see what God hath
done. Count your blessings, name them
one by one. Count your many blessings, see
what God hath done. Are you ever burdened with the
load of care? Does the cross seem heavy, you
are called to bear? Count your many blessings, every
doubt will fly. And you will be singing as the
days go by. Count your blessings, name them
one by one. Count your blessings, see what
God hath done. Count your blessings, name them
one by one. Count your many blessings, see
what God hath done. When you look at others with
their lambs and gold, think that Christ has promised you His wealth
untold. Count your many blessings money
cannot buy. Your reward in heaven or your
home on high. Count your blessings, name them
one by one. Count your blessings, see what
God hath done. Count your blessings, name them
one by one. Count your many blessings, see
what God hath done. So amid the conflict, whether
great or small, do not be discouraged, God is over all. Count your many blessings, angels
will attend. Help and comfort give you to
your journeys in. Count your blessings, name them
one by one. Count your blessings, see what
God hath done. Count your blessings. Name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see
what God hath done. Amen. Really, we're not, we're not even scratching the
surface whenever we start to count our blessings. We don't
even realize how much we truly have been blessed by the Lord. Alright. Turn with me, if you would, over
to Psalms. We're going to start in the Psalms. We're going to go ahead and read
the verse that we started with last week as the intro for our
next topic. We are looking at a series on
the doctrine of grace. We began last week in the second
hour, we began to look at the doctrine of overcoming grace
or the doctrine of invincible grace, irresistible grace. There's some terms for you. I like the term overcoming grace,
but I have no problem with irresistible grace or invincible grace. However you want to term it,
the grace of God is the grace of God. And it is amazing. You know, I mentioned last week
that this was a doctrine that I abhorred for quite a while. That and the doctrine of atonement
was just very egregious to me. But whenever I began to see what
the Bible taught about who I am apart from Christ and that there
is no hope for me to ever do anything Godward or spiritual,
this became a blessed, loved doctrine. And each time I teach
on it, each time I preach about this grace, it just swells my
heart because I realized that I was ignorant for so many years
of truly what God's grace does, what God's grace is. God's grace
isn't just giving an opportunity to be saved God's grace is actually
doing the work itself Grace is more than just and and I'll get
to this in just a minute, but grace is more than just a unmerited favor. Okay? Although I would agree with that
definition, it's been used for years, but it's more than that. And we'll talk about that here
in just a minute. But we've seen last week, we began in Psalm
chapter 65 and in verse 4, and I'll read it again. It said,
blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causeth to approach
unto thee that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied
with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. And I wanted to hone in there
and let us see that the man who is blessed is the one whom God
chooses, not the one whom you choose God. Okay? As a matter of fact, it's just
the opposite. If you've chose God, you're not blessed. Jesus
spoke to the religious Pharisees, those who thought that they were
gaining righteousness by their own works. And they were then
teaching that to the people that they were to look to their good
works, that they were to look to the law for righteousness.
And He said, you're making them twofold a child of hell. And
whenever we look at this whole thing about irresistible grace,
And that goes so tightly knit with election. Without election,
there would be no grace. And grace is also part of election. We are elected by God's grace. But when God elects us, He exerts
that grace upon us. And again, I'm going to get into
that in just a minute. Whenever we look at this and
we see, blessed is the man whom thou choosest, that doesn't just
stop there with election. It goes on and it says, and causeth
to approach. Election will play out in causing
someone to approach. So grace has two aspects. One is an aspect of unmerited
favor, okay? And we've all heard that term
before, or that phrase before. But grace is also an ever-exerting force of God upon
us at all times. Grace is something that God not
only gives to us, and it's not just this emotional or some sort
of an immaterial thing, but grace is also an active thing. It's an active force of God's
goodness upon us. And just like we talked about
in the atonement, we talked about how the atonement was efficacious,
it was effectual, it caused something to happen or it actually brought
about something. God's grace also brings about
something and that's what is different between what the Bible
teaches and what 90% of evangelicalism is teaching out there. They teach
that God's grace is a gift to be received or to be rejected
if you want to. But God's grace is something
that not only does He bestow as a favor upon us, but He exerts
it and it causes an effect. This grace is something that
comes into our life and it has power in it. And that power changes
the man, the woman, and the child. You know, and I'm going to hopefully
back that up with scripture as we go along here. But it's not
just this. And I don't even know the word
that I really need to use here, but it's just not this immaterial,
you know, word out there. But it's actually a physical
thing that God exerts upon us. And I think we'll see that as
it plays out. So I've got up here on the board,
I've changed our topic up here. It's overcoming grace. And we see that it is not only
a favor, but it is also an ever-active influence, an ever-active influence
upon our lives. Look with me, if you would, at
Psalms 110. This is a verse of Scripture
for many years that I didn't even know existed. Because like so many people for
many years, when I studied the Scriptures, I mainly stayed in
the New Testament for one. Second of all, I just went to
those verses that I liked and studied them, or whatever topic
that I wanted to look at or to press in a message, I would go
gather verses that seemingly supported that topic. and sometimes
fail to read those in their context. And later on I found out that
I was wrong in a lot of areas because I was taking verses out
of their context and applying them to a subject that I was
pressing in a message. And so whenever I began to read
verse by verse through books, whenever I began to study within
their context and especially whenever I begin to preach expositionally
verse-by-verse, a lot of things change. Well, this is one of
those verses that I missed for a long time. And whenever I come
across this verse, back whenever I first began to see the doctrines
of grace, you know, I always had this issue with free will. You know, we have to have free
will. God cannot love us and we cannot
love God if there's not true free will of man. He's got to
give men free will so that we can love Him. Well, brethren,
we know that the Bible says that we do not love God. We're enemies
of God. We learned that when we talked
about inability. That we don't love God. We will not come to
God. We're estranged from Him. We're enemies of God. And so
we see that in Scripture, and how can we overcome that nature
that we have that is at enmity with God? unless there is some
exerting force that changes our nature so that we can have the
capacity for love of God. See, before we have no capacity
of love for God, we have a capacity for religion, but not a capacity
for godly love, agape love, divine love, love that loves God. Not what God gives us, not what
God does for us, although we can love those things, but a
love for who God is in and of Himself as the Scriptures reveal
Him. The Bible says that we love Him
because He first loved us. And the Bible is replete in showing
how He loved us. One way the Scripture shows that
He loves us is that He elected us. We've seen that in Malachi.
Another thing is that we see that God loves us because He
sent His Son to die for His people. So we see that God's love, God's
grace, God's mercy, God's compassion, God's righteousness and justice,
all these things are played out and shown to us in the sending
of Jesus Christ. and the exerting that and all
of what Christ did upon us. And so, how do we know that God
loves us? Well, we know that God loves
us because He elected us, because He sent His Son to die for us.
But brethren, there's another way that we know that God loves
us. And that is whenever He makes
His power known in us. We know that He loves us because
He has made His power known in us. Brother Larry brought up
last week about the conversion of Saul, Paul. We see that God not only revealed
Himself to Paul, but He exerted Himself upon Paul and Paul was
changed. Paul went from being a hater
of Christ and a persecutor of Christ to being a minister of
Christ, an apostle of Christ. And so we see that grace is more
than just this offering. It's an actual thing that exerts
itself upon us. Now, we see here in Psalms 110,
verse 3, it says, Thy people shall be willing in the day of
Thy power, in the beauty of holiness from the womb of the morning
Thou hast to do of Thy youth. But I want to particularly look
at that first part that says, thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. That hit me as hard as Acts 13,
48 did when I first came across it. Thy people shall be made
willing, excuse me, thy people shall be willing in the day of
thy power. You know, as I mentioned a while
ago, I thought this thing about free will for so long, and I
championed free will for so long. But whenever I began to see that
the Bible teaches that it is not of the will of man, the Bible
said, "...is not of him that willeth, nor him that runneth."
The Bible is replete in talking about how man cannot do anything
of himself, that he is spiritually dead and incapable. And so with
that being understood, by light given from God to understand
these things, when you understand that, you understand that something
else has to be happening to me for me to will. Because apart
from God, I will not will. I will not will because my willer
won't will. It's dead in trespasses and sin.
It's spiritually not alive. It's spiritually not in tune.
It's out of whack, so to speak. And it can't hone in and hear
the things of God. A lot of times whenever I listen
to talk radio here, the local station in Joplin, which doesn't
reach out very far, but as I start to, whether I'm going south to
Arkansas or going east towards Springfield and down towards
the Branson area, as I begin to leave town, That station gets
a little weaker, a little weaker, a little weaker, a little weaker
till eventually I've got my radio on the numbers but there ain't
nothing there. It's just static. You know? I've got the ears to hear. but
I'm not hearing anything. It's just static. Brethren, that's
what it's like to be spiritually dead. To be spiritually dead
is you may have ears to hear and a mind to gather information,
and even somewhat of an understanding of the facts of Scripture, and
even a religious nature to even follow some of the moral aspects
of this book. But until that dial is tuned
in and receiving, It's not understanding what this is being said. Whenever
I get on the outskirts of town, I can hear a little bleed over
and it's just like... I can't understand a thing that
they're saying. I might hear some words here and there, but
I don't understand what is being said. Brethren, until the Spirit
of God causes you to be born again,
to be spiritually made alive, You can't hear the truth of God's
Word. And so I fought that for so long
thinking that it's by, you know, grace is something that God has
put out for me to choose His grace, accept His grace. He's
given grace, but you have to reach out and receive it. It's
a gift of God and we have to receive it. You may buy a gift
for me, but unless I come and pick it up or come and get it
from you, it's not mine until I get it. Well, see, that's not
how it is with the Word of God. We've made man's understanding
of things The doctrine. But the doctrine of Scripture
over and over and over shows that this receiving of grace,
this receiving of salvation, this receiving of the new birth,
the receiving talked about in Scripture is a passive receiving. It's not an active thing. We
receive it because it is given to us, exerted in us, upon us. It's given to us. Whenever I
give a gift, you know what? As in all illustrations, they're
not 100% foolproof. But whenever I buy a gift for
somebody, you know what I normally do? I go and I give it to them. I don't say, hey, I bought you
a gift. If you'll drive to my house, I'll let you have it.
Okay? Most generally, when we buy a
gift for somebody, what do we want to do? We want to personally
give it to them. Right? We want to give it to them. We
don't want them to, you know, I don't just leave it on my front
porch and say, hey, I bought you a gift on my front porch
whenever you feel like taking it. Come and get it. But if you
don't come and get it, you'll never get it. No. Even if I did
that, if I hadn't seen anybody come and get it in a couple days,
you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take it and I'm going to go over to
their house and I'm going to leave it on their doorstep or something. God's gift is something
that is given to us, not offered to us. Nowhere in the scripture
do we find that salvation, that grace, that mercy, that any of
these things that was purchased for us in the atonement is offered. Nowhere. Search the Scriptures
to see whether this be true. See where it's offered, that
it's given out and offered and said, if you'll just do this,
then I'll give it to you. No. It shows that He gives it
to us. He gives it to us. And we receive
it. Because we are made receiving.
We are made to receive the gift by spiritual life. Now, here
in Psalm 110 and verse 3, the Bible clearly says that thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. Do we believe that
whenever we come to Christ that we chose to come to Christ? Yes,
we do believe that. But we believe that in the context
of what the Scripture teaches. That we chose to come to Christ
because He caused us Remember what we just read. Blessed is
the man whom thou choosest and causeth to approach unto thee.
That's the foundation that we have to work with here. If we're
going to understand grace, if we're going to understand coming
to Christ and receiving grace, we have to understand the foundation
is that you didn't choose God, God chose you, and in choosing
you, caused you to come to Him. That causing that the Bible is
very clear about. In Ezekiel, when it says that
He will give you a new heart and cause you to walk in His
statutes, that causing there, that's on His part, right? He
is causing you, not you're causing Him to give you. He is causing
you to come. He is causing you to walk. It's
God exerting force upon you. That force is His grace. He gives
you grace to accomplish the things that He has purposed for you. Believing, repenting, all those
things are things that God, those are the good works that God has
ordained before the foundation of the world that you should
walk in. And guess what? You're going to walk in it because
He gives you grace to do so. So grace is more than just this
offering of some bountiful thing of God. It's an exerting force
that God is ever actively influencing His people with. And so we see,
the people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Whenever
Mike Smith willed to trust Christ, willed to repent, to be baptized,
willed to be a part of the church, to will to be this or that. Guess
what? It wasn't Mike Smith's will out
of nowhere. God caused me to approach unto
Him. God caused me to walk in His
statutes. God did that. It is God who works
in us to will and to do His good pleasure. And so this power that
he's speaking of is His grace. The people shall be willing in
the day of Thy power." Not any time sooner. Not a day later. Thy people will
be willing in the day of Thy power. When God exerts that grace
upon us, that power upon us, we will be willing. And willing
we were, every one of us. As I mentioned, you know, in
election, and it may have been in election, one of the messages,
you know, I mentioned how many of you come to Christ kicking
and screaming, not wanting to? Not one of us did. I sure didn't. No, I wanted to run. At that
time, all I knew was come to the front, you know? But I know
one thing. If that's where it was at, which
that's not where it's at, by the way, but if that's where
it was at, I wanted to get there. See, even in ignorance, the willing
wasn't mine. The willing came from Him. He
exerted His power upon me and made me willing in the day of
His power. And in the day of that power, guess what? My willer
got to willing and I came. But we've got to understand the
foundation is He causeth us to approach unto Him. Now, do I
have biblical support for this exerting power? Well, I would
say that verse there is very good proof. In the day of thy
power, we're made willing. So God's power exerted upon us
is a gracious thing, because without God exerting that power
in His day, we won't be willing. So the unmerited favor is this. You didn't do anything for it,
but God exerted it in you, and you were willing. The unmerited
favor is the fact that God didn't owe you grace to believe, to
receive, to trust, to come, to follow, to repent. God didn't
owe you the grace to bring you to spiritual life to understand
those things. He didn't owe that to you at
all. It was because He elected you. It was because He chose
you. And then it was because He caused
you to approach unto Him by that exerting, overcoming grace. What did it overcome? We're not
talking about overcoming grace. That's what some people think
they can do with their sin. You know, we can sin. We can overcome
grace with our sin, you know. Some people think that they can
do that because they believe that we can be lost again. We
can be saved and lost, saved and lost, saved and lost. So
we overcome grace with our sin. That's not what we're talking
about. When we say overcoming grace, we're talking about grace
that overcomes the inability that causes us, because we are
born of Adam, born with the nature that Adam possessed that could
not keep God's law, could not have anything for righteousness
within himself, that passed down to all of us, that grace that
overcomes that nature, that Adamic nature, that earthy nature, that
dead spiritual nature that Adam had. That is what we have and
it has to be overcome before we can do anything spiritual. So when God exerts that grace
upon us, it overcomes the Adamic nature. It is victorious over the Adamic
nature. And we then are in tune to spiritual
things now. We can discern spiritual things
just like Corinthians tells us. We can discern those spiritual
things because we have been made spiritual. We understand the
things of the Spirit. Why? Because they're spiritually
discerned. And now we know. Now we understand. Now we desire. Now we've grown in our heart
for those things of the Spirit. And we come. We come. We come. Thy people shall be made willing
in the day of Thy power. But let's look, if you would,
over into the New Testament. And I want us to see a couple
of places where we see this very vividly. Look with me, if you
would, over in Ephesians 3. Ephesians 3. Paul's writing to the church
in Ephesus here. And I'm going to start reading
in chapter 2. I'm wanting to look, though,
specifically in chapter 3, but I want you to see the context,
getting to where we're going, okay? It says, And you hath He
quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin. You hath He quickened. That's the day of His power,
okay? Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. That's quickening. And you hath
He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin, where in
times 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. Among whom also
we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." So
there again, our nature was wrathful against God. And all these people
that think we can just automatically love God, okay, from an unquickened
state. Everybody that believes that
you're born again after you believe and trust Christ is ignorant
of the Scriptures. I mean, I don't mean that harshly. Maybe I do mean that harshly,
but I mean it truthfully. They're ignorant of the Scriptures.
The nature that we have is a nature that is wrathful to God. Now, we may be religious, but
whenever you are religious to a God foreign of this book, you
are being wrathful to the true God. You are showing wrath against
the true God. Whenever you believe in a Jesus
that is not the Jesus of this book, you are being wrathful
against the true Jesus of Scripture. When you believe the Jesus of
free will, when you believe the Jesus that died for everybody,
whenever you believe in the Jesus who doesn't believe in wrath,
Okay, you're believing in a Jesus that's not in this book. You're
being wrathful against God. You're showing your wrath against
God. You say, well, how am I showing my wrath against God? Because
you don't want the God of the scripture. You hate the God of
the scripture. The God of the Scripture is an
electing God, is a particular redeeming God, is a governing
God, a sovereign God, a predestinating God that does what He wants and
gets what He wants. And man's nature hates that.
It has hated that from the very beginning. It hated that in Adam
before he ever bit down on the fruit. Adam hated that, else
he would not have ate the fruit. Eve would not have ate the fruit
had not there been something in her already that despised
the fact that God said no. Or that thought she could do
something that God said, you can't do that. Or that she wanted
to be like God. See, brethren, there was something
there from the beginning. And we see right here in Ephesians
it says that it is the nature of us. We were by nature children
of wrath. Not under wrath, of wrath. Wrathful children. But God who
is rich in mercy, and that is one of my favorite phrases. That
but right there in verse 4. But God. I remember Brother Howard
used to say that too. He loved that segue going from
what we just read in those first three verses and verse four,
but God. but God who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us..." See, there's
God's love and He's exerting this love. "...even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
ye are saved." See, grace is the foundation of it all. And
it's more than just an offering. This grace exerted itself in
quickening. and hath raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." What
made us sit in high places? That in the ages to come, He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness
towards us through Christ Jesus. Brethren, this is more than an
offer. Grace is more than just this ethereal offer of goodness
that God has done. For by grace are ye saved. So many people want to say, for
by faith are you saved. In fact, I've seen that just
the other day, some Reform guy online touting that we are saved
by faith. It says we are saved by grace
through faith. And I know a lot of the free
willers want to say, aha, there it is, you've got to have faith
to be saved. Whenever you're saved by Christ,
positionally, and then in time, whenever you are experientially
brought to that salvation, to know that you're going to have faith. Why?
Because it was given to you in the new birth. But that faith
did not save you at all. There is His faith that saved
you, but yours didn't. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and here he tells us, that's what I said, and that
not of yourselves. It is a gift of God. So grace
is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Wherefore remember that ye being in times past Gentiles in the
flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision
in the flesh made by hands." that at the time ye were without
Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers
from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God
in the world." Now that was also the same plight as those who
were in Israel, by the way. But here Paul is explaining to
the Ephesians, if you'll remember, you were segregated from the
people of God. God didn't allow us to come to
you and wouldn't let you come to us except in certain instances
where He called and drew these people in like Rahab and people
like that. So basically he's saying, you
guys didn't get in on this. Matter of fact, this grace wasn't
given and exposed to you guys, told to you guys, or exerted
upon you guys in the masses of old. But now it has. Now it is. Here I am. That's what he's talking
about. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who
sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For He is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken
down the middle wall of partition between us." There again, we
see that there is no more Israel in the flesh and Gentiles in
the flesh. We're all one in Christ. when
it's pertaining to the people of God. Again, remember, this
is talking about the people of God. So we have the spiritual
Israel, and that is made up of all men of all nations, language,
tribe, tongue, kindred, you name it. Okay? So he's broken down
the middle wall of partition. So there is no more Gentiles,
there is no more Jews, there is no more Gentiles in the Israel
distinctions. Okay? In Christ Jesus. having abolished in His flesh
the enmity, even the law of commandment contained in ordinances, for
to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and
that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross,
having slain the enmity thereby." The work of Christ on the cross
slayed the enmity between us and God. Again, I should have
put that verse back in our talk on particular redemption as one
of the efficacious things that the cross did. But here we see
that it slayed the enmity. And so whenever grace is exerted
upon the believer, when grace is exerted upon the child of
grace, upon the elect of God, the enmity goes away. Now, there
is no enmity of God, but there is enmity with us. Have you ever
had somebody that didn't like you, but you liked them? You
know, I've had that. There's been guys, you know,
I'm alright, I don't have anything against, but for some reason,
they just have something against me. And I don't have nothing
against them. you will say there's enmity between
me and them. But the enmity is not on my part.
The enmity is on their part. And it usually isn't until something
is cleared up, then all of a sudden there is reconciliation. And it takes two people to reconcile,
but one person over here was already fine with everything.
It was the other person that needed to be reconciled. They
need to have cleared up what was causing them to be wrathful. to be at enmity with the other
person. So, brethren, God is not at enmity
with His people, but His people have enmity towards Him until
we have been quickened of God and the wall has been cleared
up. Why we don't want... I don't
want a God like that. Whenever He gives you spiritual
understanding, then you do. I didn't want a God like that
either. But whenever God quickened my heart, given me spiritual
understanding to understand the words of these Scriptures, in
what measure He's given me to understand it, guess what? There
was no more enmity there. I'm okay with a God that predestines
every single action in this world. I'm okay with that. I'm okay
with a God who chooses some and not others. I'm okay with a God
that can love and hate as He sees fit. Why? Because that is
the God of the Scriptures. and came and preached peace to
you which were far off and to them that were nigh, for through
Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore
ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens
with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself
being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly
framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord. In
whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God through
the Spirit. And here we go, chapter 3. For
this cause I, Paul..." For this cause. The preaching of this. This very thing that God has
done. For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ
for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of
the grace of God, which is given Me to you-ward, how that by revelation
He made known unto Me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words,
whereby when ye read, ye may understand My knowledge in the
mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto
the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles
and prophets by the Spirit." Okay, what are we talking about
here? Well, Paul, number one, is saying that I'm a prisoner
of Jesus Christ. Jesus has come and captivated
me. Now, let's think about this. A prisoner is someone who was
taken against their will, right? How many people want to be in
jail? want to be a prisoner. Nobody
does. But Paul is saying, I've been
made a prisoner. Now, we also learn in other places
that Paul isn't sorrowful about that, okay? He's glad that he
was made a prisoner for Jesus Christ. But he's saying that,
listen, something happened to me, as I foretold you, something
happened to me, I was arrested by Christ and that arresting
made me his prisoner." Think back, Brother Larry read it last
week on the road to Damascus, what happened? He knocked Paul
down off of his horse, shone a bright light in his eyes, blinded
him for a few days, and he said, hey, I'm making you an apostle
to the Gentiles. That's what he's recalling right
here. I was made a prisoner as an apostle to you Gentiles. God told him in so many years
on the backside of the desert there, taught him everything
that he needed to know to do this. And He sent him to the
Gentiles. And He says, how that by revelation
He made known unto me the mystery whereby when you read, you may
understand My knowledge in the mystery which in other ages was
not made known unto the sons of men. Paul learned more fully the things
of Jesus Christ, which they didn't know in the Old Testament. Did
they know a Messiah was coming? Absolutely. Did they know that
by that Messiah's sacrifice that they would be justified? Absolutely. I believe that the Gospel was
well enough known back then that they understood. They didn't
know the full details of everything exactly, because we're told right
here they didn't. But Paul now is showing that
this that was happening for them is happening for you. And all
of this is part of the mystery that was of God. And now this
mystery is being made known unto you. It's being sent to you.
And it says that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the
same body and partakers of His promise in Christ by the Gospel. Now look at v. 7. "...Whereof
I was made a minister." The grace that God gave to the
Gentiles, the grace that God gave to the Israelites, the grace
that God gave to Paul and shown to Paul and exerted upon Paul
made him a minister according to the gift of the grace of God
given unto me. Here it is. This is where I get
the two-fold part of grace. the favorable part and the exerting
part, by the effectual working of His power. God's grace goes
hand in hand with His power. When God gives grace, His power
effects that. His power comes. So now we've
seen three verses of Scripture. Psalm 65, 4. Psalms 110, 3. And now Ephesians 3, verse 7
that says that all this grace. Now we just read what all that
grace is talking about. about bringing Jews and Gentiles
all together under the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the gospel,
the good news of their imputed righteousness in Christ, who
died for them, who gave Himself for them, who atoned for them,
who redeemed them, justified, sanctified, glorified them, did
all the work necessary to bring them to God, to reconcile them
to God. That good news was done by grace. All that came by grace. But grace wasn't just offered,
it was exerted in power. He took that grace and didn't
just make it an offering, but He made it so. And He says here that I was made
a minister according to the gift of the grace of God. He didn't
say I was offered a ministry position. You realize that. I wasn't offered a ministry position. Now, this may sound maybe prideful
or arrogant, but I'm never going to work for a church. That's not how it works. No,
God calls and makes ministers of God. God calls them and gives
them gifts to do what they do. And if ever God decides that
He wants something different than that, then so be it. But
brethren, Paul says he was made a minister according to the grace
of God by the effectual working of His power. That means the
effectual working of the power of God had to do something upon
Paul so that the grace that was intended for Paul would come
forth. Right? Is that what that verse
is saying? That's what it seems to say to
me. So grace is unmerited favor of
God And I believe that that grace is not common. That grace is
effectual grace. That grace is particular grace.
That grace is amazing grace. But that grace is the grace that
is given to the elect of God. And that grace is effected by
the power of God. It is enacted by the power of
God. gives grace, his power comes
before it, and exerts upon the person that grace is going to
be given to, and then that grace is received and experienced. Received and experienced. We receive the grace of God in
that we trust that God has shown us grace. That's the immaterial
part. The words are escaping me, the
distinctions here. But there is a physical part
to it. that it changes my thinking, changes my desires, changes my
want-tos to where now, like Paul, I made a minister where I didn't
want to be a minister. I did not want to be a pastor.
For a long time I did not want to be a pastor. All right, let's take a break
right there and we'll come back in and jump in to a couple more
verses. But I think we've laid the foundation
that grace has a twofold meaning here. And we'll come back here
in just a few minutes. I have to take a break and use
the restroom.