Our text is found in the book of Ephesians in the sixth chapter. Ephesians chapter six. One thing that the Lord's people, God's people are made to know is that salvation is all of grace. Salvation is all of the Lord. Salvation is all of his design, his purpose by his power. All for his glory. No one has ever been saved because of a choice that they've made or because of something that they did or did not do. Salvation's of the Lord. Salvation is God's choice.

And we can see that it's clear that if man's given a choice, what choice would he make? Well, what was the only choice God ever gave to a man? It's in the garden, wasn't it? The garden. And what happened in that choice? Well, they didn't choose the way of God, did they? They chose the way of the flesh, and you and I would be no different. If the Lord gave us a choice in the flesh to make, we're gonna choose that which the flesh desires. And it's not the Lord. It's not the Lord.

We would certainly remain eternally lost if God does not choose to reveal his truth, to show us his mystery, the great mystery of his gospel. Something about our God is that we can't comprehend Him. He's past finding out. We can't understand Him. We can't attain unto Him. Men believe that they get closer and closer to God by what they learn or what they know, but that's not true. Knowledge just puffeth up. He can't be learned. You can only be taught by him. I can only be taught by him. And that's our desire, to be taught of the Lord. And the good news is the scripture tells us, they all shall be taught of me. His people shall be taught of him. No man can discover him.

Have you ever heard, there's a song that came on yesterday. I listen to music when I study, and it's instrumental most of the time, that's not really relevant, but it's relevant for what I'm about to tell you. Sometimes they play a song that has words to it, and I skip those pretty quickly, because that's a distraction, I can't study with words. But the name of the song, or the lyrics of the song is, I found God at the bottom. I found God. Brethren, I would like to remind us that God's never been lost. Not one time has God been lost.

You can't find Him. He must find me. See, He's sovereign. He's not waiting on me to discover Him. He's not looking to see, well, what are you going to do? I've did all this. I've loved you so much that I've done all this. Now it's up to you to do your part. It's up to you to do something. No. No, he said, I loved you with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. I've redeemed you, I've bought you with a price. You're mine, period.

The Lord's never been lost, but we certainly are. And this morning, I hope that the Lord reveals to our heart the mystery. Title of the message, The Great is the Mystery. Great is the mystery. If he reveals that mystery, perhaps he'd be in mercy. We won't be lost. but we'll see him as he is.

So let's read these three verses, Ephesians chapter six, verse 18. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching there into with all perseverance and supplication for the saints, for all saints. And for me, that utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.

I was going to title this message, The Mystery of the Gospel, as found in verse 19, but we just preached a message back in November of last year titled, The Mystery of the Gospel. And I was led to call this, Great is the Mystery, Great is the Mystery. God's mystery of his gospel is threefold for this hour, and we could probably find many, many more if the Lord would be our help, the Lord would be our teacher. There's many mysteries when it comes to God.

As a matter of fact, everything about him is a mystery. Everything. Nothing about our God can be believed by our flesh. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Your flesh cannot totally believe God is sovereign. Your flesh is enmity against God. The flesh is hostile against God. If the flesh believed that God was totally sovereign, the flesh wouldn't be hostile against God. Flesh can't believe God was successful in redeeming because it takes faith to believe all that. And faith is the spiritual gift. It's not physically given. Faith is given spiritually speaking. So these three gifts that I'm mentioning are not even, not all the gifts, but this is what the Lord has given me.

First is how God saved his people from their sin. That's the first mystery. First great mystery. The second great mystery is the mystery of the Lord Jesus Christ, his substitution for his elect. And the third and final one, mystery of his gospel, is complete union with him. Now that's a mystery. Complete union with God in Christ.

Right now. Not going to happen, but right now we have complete union with him. Scripture says, brethren, we know not what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall be, we shall be made like him, for we shall see him as he is. And in John 17, he tells us the glory that he had with the father he's given unto his people. He's already gave us his glory.

Where is it? It's on the inward man. It's on the inward parts. Complete union. That's a mystery. This is because of the new birth and indwelling of his spirit. So first, Great is the mystery in how God saved his people, how God saved his elected sinners, how God chose to have mercy on some and chose to pass by others. It's a great mystery. Before time, God chose to save a people because of love, because of love, all for his glory and completely by his grace alone. God made a covenant with himself They made a covenant.

The covenant was not made between you or me and God. The covenant was made between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It wasn't made with the angels. It wasn't made with man. It was made when the triune Godhead established the covenant according to the determinate counsel of God to redeem a people. Scripture says this is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. We were not part of that covenant. We are just the benefactors of that covenant. Just the benefactors.

Whenever someone has a will, a written will that they're going to give upon their passing, They write their will with a lawyer, attorney, and they have it notarized to make it official. And if I'm not mistaken, that's three parts right there. God wrote a will, the Son executed the will, and the Spirit keeps those, regenerates those who are the benefactors of that will. This is the glorious part of God's salvation and how he saves his people. He wrote the will, he signed the will, he completed the will. Don't you love the fact that the will of God is going to come to pass because the one that's enacting the will, the one that is supposed to be the person responsible for making certain that the will comes to be.

So if you pass away, who are you trusting to make sure your will comes to be? Let's say you have a lot of money and you pass. and you're trusting so-and-so to divvy out that money properly. Well, so-and-so may try to find a loophole to keep all the money. You see what I'm saying? Who you trusting?

Well, God didn't trust anybody else but his son. His son's been resurrected, therefore the will's gonna come to be, because Christ is the one that fulfilled the will and is the one who makes certain the will will come to pass. What a mystery. What a mystery in salvation.

God didn't leave salvation to chance or demand to decide. He decided because He's sovereign. He made certain that everyone that He desired to be saved would be saved, and so much that He saw them in Christ before the foundation of the world. I love that our Lord elected a people, and Christ is called the elect of the Lord. He was elected as the savior, the substitute. He was elected as the surety. He was elected as the redeemer. Every means necessary for salvation, God ordained, and it came to pass according to his will, according to his will. In order for this to come to pass, the Lord Jesus Christ had to become a man.

And this is where I got the title, great is the mystery. First Timothy chapter three, verse 16. And without controversy, great is the mystery and Godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached into the Gentiles, believed on in the world and received up into glory. Great is the mystery and Godliness. He said without controversy, not controversial.

It's just a mystery. That's what he's telling us. God became a man in the fullness of time to redeem his people who were dead and trespassed and sinned under bondage of the law. He had to become in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. He was born of a woman, born under the law to redeem them that were under the law. Everything about you and I equaled certain death, but everything about the Lord Jesus Christ guaranteed eternal life because of who he is and what he accomplished. That's a mystery, isn't it?

You're saying I don't contribute anything? We don't contribute anything. You say I don't do anything to become saved? No, God saved his people from their sin on the cross. You're saying it's not up to me to believe? No, the only ones that can believe are those that hear, and the only ones that can hear are the ones that God gives ears to hear by faith. It's a mystery, isn't it? It's a mystery to the flesh, but the Spirit believes it by faith.

You'll notice I didn't say understands it. I just said believes it by faith. Somebody says, I really understand everything that you're saying. I don't understand some of the things I'm saying. I just believe it because God said it. Isn't that true? We don't sit here and say, oh, I totally, I've got my head wrapped all around that.

The flesh cannot comprehend the things of God, for it is enmity against God. Things of God are spiritual. We're born under bondage without the ability to fix it, having no spiritual life. We're spiritually dead, dead dog sinners. I use that term a lot because that's the best way I can describe me and you, dead dog sinners. Without God doing something, we'll remain in that state. And God chose to do something, redeem his elect. He chose to elect a people to redeem those people and to regenerate those people, bring them back to life. It's amazing to me that because of the fall, and I've heard it said many times, this is a great point. I don't know who coined the phrase, but if you're wrong on the fall, you're wrong on it all. And that's very true.

If we're wrong on what really happened in the garden, how far that we truly fail in our father, Adam, then we will not see the need for Christ being our substitute, Christ being our surety. We'll think that we can do something to fix it. Obviously, that's totally different than what the scripture teaches us throughout every, you can look at all the allegories and different things with Cain and Abel and so on.

All that being said, though, how far we fell was to the very, very bottom. It wasn't that we were just crippled. It wasn't just that we were, um, One ailment that needed to be fixed. No, we were made to be dead spiritually. We died spiritually in the garden. Literally, we died spiritually in the garden.

And if it wasn't for the Lord choosing to redeem us choosing to make us back alive by his spirit, we would never be spiritually alive, we must be born again, the Lord told Nicodemus. That's exactly what God chose to do. He bought back his created creatures who were sold to sin, sold under the law, sold into bondage because of what they are. Can you imagine the creator of this world? What a mystery this is. The Lord creates man who is upright, who is sinless. He was sinless, he hadn't sinned yet.

But once he committed trespass, once he committed sin, he became a sin and sin entered in death thereby. Now he can't do anything to fix that sin whatsoever and he's under the penalty of that sin. So he's sold under sin. What's the penalty of sin? Well, the wages of sin is death.

He doesn't stop there. He says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So him being dead in trespasses and in sin needs God to do everything in order to bring him back from that state of being completely dead. What a mystery that you and I can be brought back to life completely. Not just, and we're going to get to the unity later on, but not just in harmony with him, but complete unity and oneness with him. How did he do all this? Well, he did it by the sacrifice of himself, by his choice alone. Great is the mystery in how God saved his people. And if I ever get tired of hearing that, I have a serious problem, because that's eternal life. That's salvation. God chose to save his people. He chose to redeem them all by himself.

Most men see God as a little God that can't do anything. They see him as puny and insignificant, insufficient. God is seated as sovereign and just and the justifier of his people. He's not waiting for you and he's not waiting for me. He accomplished everything he purposed to accomplish.

Great is the mystery in how God saved his people. Secondly, pertaining to God's gospel, You want to talk about a great mystery, great is the mystery of the substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ for his people. You want to talk about something impossible to understand, absolutely impossible, but completely believable by faith alone. What God does in a sinner, after he saves them, or during the process of salvation, coming to that sinner, being revealed to that sinner, he gives them the ability to believe God over logic.

Said Jesus, Christ walked on water. Do you believe that? Well, that doesn't make any sense, unless he's God, and you can believe it by faith. Well, it says God turned water into wine. That doesn't make any sense. It's unbelievable. I've got to see that with my own eyes. No, not if he gives you faith.

God spoke the world into existence. He hung the stars in the heaven without moving a muscle. He hung the earth on nothing and spun it at the exact speed where you and I wouldn't be plastered to the ground, unable to move or floating around. Make gravity so that we'd be exactly as we are. He spoke it into existence. He calls everything that's alive to be exactly what it is at the present moment. He gave you sight, he gave you hearing, he gave you smell and taste and touch.

And yet, men want to dethrone God in his creation and say, no, there was two particles that were floating out in outer space at one point and they collided. Well, where'd the two particles come from? Well, they've always been. Well, that doesn't make any sense, because particles are not sovereign. Particles can't be omnipotent, everlasting, never changing.

God is. Now the hardest part for us is to believe God is unchangeable, because that's what the scripture clearly declares, and yet everything around us is changing. Name one thing in your life that you see physically that never changes, never changes, that you see. I mean, these chairs are changing. One of these years, if we stay here long enough, we're going to need new benches.

You know, I'm telling the truth. One of these years, we're going to need another paint job because the paint's going to start peeling. It's going to start fading. It's going to get scuffed up. See, Mac looked at me when I said that. One of these days, we're going to need new this or that. It's all fading, going back to dust. And look at us in the mirror. I was looking at pictures from a few years ago. I'm going back to dust. Nothing I can do to stop it. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never changes. Do you believe that? That's my only hope.

Because if he could change, he would fall out of love with me. That would mean his love was not everlasting. That would mean the work of the cross didn't actually accomplish my salvation. He cannot change. And the best part about that is that means I cannot change him. I can't change him. If he has set his affection upon you and I, if he's determined to be your savior, which he did before the foundation of the world, you and I cannot change him.

He's unchangeable. Not only is this a mystery, but it's a mystery in substitution that God would choose to be robed in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemn sin in the flesh. That He would take our place, that He would take our punishment on the cross of Calvary.

It's a great mystery. Now most people ignorantly, and the word ignorant is not a derogatory term. It simply just means unlearned or uneducated. They haven't been brought to the truth, but they ignorantly, and the scripture even talks about people being willingly ignorant. No, I'm going to choose to continue to believe this, whether it's right or wrong.

I heard a woman tell me recently, she said, this was what I believe. She knew what we preach. And she said, so you're saying this and you're saying this. And I said, yes, that's exactly what we're saying. God only died for his people. And she said, well, I'm going to keep believing what I believe. And I said, why is that? She said, well, it was good enough for my grandmother, and it was good enough for my mom, and it was good enough for my husband, and it's good enough for me. And I thought, what does that have to do with salvation? That's willingly ignorant. That's what he's talking about.

But most people believe Jesus Christ died for everybody without exception. And if that be the case, everybody's saved. Don't miss that. Men fabricate that Christ made a bucket at the foot of the cross and all you have to do is dump your sin into it. It's just foolishness. No, God was doing business with God on the cross. Hebrews 1, 2, and 3 says this, in these last days, God spoken unto us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom he also made the world, to being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

So if he purged everyone's sin, without exception, they're gone. They're gone. Lord said, your sin and your iniquity, I will remember no more. Your iniquity and your sin, I will remember no more. If that be the case, then everybody's saved. But he did not die for everyone. He is the substitute surety of his people. He took their place specifically. He took their place. It wasn't just that he, he took their place.

This is a great mystery that can only be revealed by God's gospel. How do you explain God became a man? It'd be easier to understand that God, scripture tells us, God hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand. It's easier to believe that than it is God became a man, isn't it?

But even then, the vastness escapes our intelligence because we can't think about him being that big, because we look at the ocean and it's overwhelmingly large to us. And yet he measured the waters in the hollow of his hand. Is that true or is that a metaphor? Yes, it's true. But it's also to show us his vastness, his isness.

And yet he chose to condescend to become dust and take our place as the righteous savior taking the place of dead dog sinners on the cross in so much that when the Lord laid the iniquity of us all on him and saw the travail of his soul, he was satisfied.

How do you explain God making him sin who knew no sin yet without sin? How do you explain that? That we might be made the righteousness of God. We were literally made the righteousness of God. How do you explain that? That's a mystery. Great is the mystery in salvation, brethren. This righteousness is not something that's in the future either. This righteousness is right now, from this very moment.

There's no further action God requires of you and I for you to be made the righteousness of God in Christ if Christ died for you. Christ is our substitute. He took our wrath. He drank the cup of our punishment. And you know the glorious part of the substitution is he gave us all his glory.

Tells us that in John 17, glorify the Son with the same glory I had when I was with thee, and the same glory that thou hast given me I give unto them. Isn't that a mystery? He's put his glory in his people. How glorious is that? He gave us salvation freely by his grace. This is what God reveals by his gospel. This is the great mystery of substitution, how a sinner can be made righteous.

In the Old Testament, the word mystery is not found, but the word secret is. I found that interesting. The word secret is. Listen to what Psalm 25, 14 says, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will show them his covenant, his covenant. Well, how does that covenant revealed by the preaching of the gospel? It's no wonder Paul said in Romans chapter one, verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God and the salvation. Everyone that believe it to the Jew first and also to the Greek. What a mystery our Lord's gospel is. Which brings us to our last great mystery. It's a mystery that God's elect have perfect union with him right now. Right now, can you see it?

Not with these eyes. The life that I would live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And at the same time, he says, that which I would do, I do not, but that which I would not do, that's what I do. What's that mean? In me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.

My hope is Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's the hope, perfect union with the Lord. Once God reveals his truth to one of his elect, he reveals the source of your and I's perfection. And what is that perfection? Christ in you. Christ in you. He said, and when I see the blood, I will pass by you. When I see him, I am well pleased. Now understand something, it's not a metaphor, whenever the Lord said that we are crucified with Christ, that's not a metaphor. Going back to the substitutionary work, this is part of the union that took place. We died in Christ. The flesh is dead to the law in God's eyes.

All he sees is the new man created in righteousness and true holiness. All he sees is the inward man. And he says, I'm well satisfied. Why? Because it is then the exact likeness of Jesus Christ. When the record is read, when we get there, it will not read at the top my name or your name. It'll read the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a new history. We have a brand new story. Nothing bad that we've ever done will be brought up because He took it out of the way and nailed it to His cross. His people are born of His Spirit, born from above, made new creatures.

Listen to what Ephesians 4.22 says. Put off concerning the former conversation of the old man, which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you may put on the new man, the new man, which is after God, which is after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. The new man is created in righteousness and true holiness. This is the new man. This is the new man. What nature does that new man have?

Righteousness and true holiness. Living by faith, not by sight. We don't have that nature in the flesh. That's God-given. That's God-given. It's the result of the new birth. It's the result of the indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is Christ in you. It is the spirit of the Lord that is in us, born of his spirit, born from above. We no longer walk by sight pertaining to things of God. We walk by faith, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And brethren, you know it's true.

That the Lord, when he reveals all these mysteries to us, that we look to Christ as all of our wisdom, all of our righteousness, all of our sanctification, and all of our redemption. This is great mysteries pertaining to God's salvation and his spirit according to his gospel. Listen to what Romans 16 tells us. Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery. So it's according to the gospel, according to the revelation of the ministry. Who's the revelator?

The Lord. The Lord is. Because he also says, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith, that the only wise God be glory through Christ Jesus forever.

Amen. Thank God for choosing to reveal these great mysteries to his people. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would take these words and bless them to our understanding, all for your glory. Otherwise, they're going to remain mysteries. Your past finding out, give us faith to believe in Christ's name. Amen. Let's take a break.