You know, every day we wake up, we are a day closer to going home. You ever think of that? Every day you wake up, we're a day closer to going home to be with the Lord forever, to our appointed time. We don't think that way, do we? But that's a wonderful thing to think about, isn't it? Oh, it's great. And when we get home, oh my, the most amazing thing is we get to see our Savior face to face. And you know what? Everything that's happened upon this earth to us won't even matter. It won't even matter, not one little bit. My, that's encouraging, isn't it? That's encouraging. Okay.

Turn, if you would, to Ephesians chapter one, where we continue our study in this wonderful book. Now, we're gonna look at verse seven. I'm thinking we might spend about three weeks on this verse, because there's three distinct things brought forth in this verse, which is just wonderful. Three main components of our salvation are in this verse.

The first being that we are redeemed by the blood of Christ. He's redeemed us. This is a fact. We've been redeemed. You see the verbiage, in whom we have redemption. We have it right now. Verse 7 of Ephesians 1. We have it right now. It's currently ours. We who are the born-again, blood-washed saints of God. And then we see the second component of our salvation being the forgiveness of all our sins.

Look at that. The forgiveness of sins. That means all of them. Every one of them. Even the ones we don't know we did. It's glorious. And then we see in the third part where this comes from. It's all according to the riches of God's grace. If you're saved, it's according to the riches of God's grace through Christ alone. Now that'll warm our hearts, won't it? out of warmer hearts, because it's all His mercy shown to us in Christ.

It's unsought after. We don't seek it, do we, Brother Brian? We don't seek it. We don't merit it. We don't deserve it, and yet He gives it. Notice, we have redemption through His blood, through Christ's work, through His shed blood. We have it. Now, we may be tossed to and fro, But we haven't. We haven't. Everybody's doubted at one time, right? We haven't. Oh, my. Oh.

Now, redemption is the central component of understanding salvation. Redemption means this. Deliverance by The payment of ransom. Deliverance by the payment of ransom. So in other words, a stipulated price. Okay? What was the price for our redemption? The blood of Christ. The blood of the God-man. The blood of the sinless one. Redeems us from all our sins. So redemption, again, means deliverance by the payment of a ransom.

When you redeem something, you do it by paying the stipulated price, whatever the price you've come to. Right? When we go to the grocery stores, we're redeeming products. There's a price tag, isn't there? I want that can. Yellows to you only pick one can out if you're looking for it, and you leave all the others behind Why because you want that can And do the cans jump in the cart Say I want to go home with you Nope they just sit on the shelf don't they oh God's grace is amazing isn't it?

He chooses us in Christ, and then he ransoms us with the blood of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, pays the price that's already been stipulated, already been agreed upon. And that was in the covenant of grace, wasn't it, in eternity, between the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, ransom or redemption was used.

Number one, when a slave could be redeemed by a kinsman, who paid the adequate price for them to be released. Or a prisoner could be freed if someone paid the required amount for his freedom or her freedom. And the slaves could be set free by the payment of a purchase price. They could be set free.

Well, we were slaves. We were in bondage to sin. We were slaves to sin. Do you know that? We were. We're not anymore, but we were. And the blood of Christ is the ransom price that set us free. We didn't even know it. We didn't know it, did we, Sister Carolyn? When we were born into this world and growing up, we didn't know that Christ already paid the ransom price for our souls. We had no idea. We didn't seek Him. We didn't understand the things of God.

And one day, He saved us. We were born again because we were saved by the blood of Christ 2,000 years ago. The ransom price was already paid. Isn't that glorious? And now we go tell others, Christ saves all who come to Him. All who come to Him. People say, well, how can you say that? That sounds a little Armenian. Christ saves all who come to Him. All. Sinners. Bonafide sinners.

I don't care if it sounds whatever you want to think it sounds like. I don't care. I know that those who come are the chosen of God. I know that. But I tell all sinners, like we're supposed to, right? Go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Come unto me, the Lord said. All you that labor and are heavy laden. Are you laden with your sin? Are you laden in religion? Come to Christ. Come to Christ.

And all who do come to him, He paid the price, the ransom, didn't he, 2,000 years ago. Isn't that wonderful? It actually encourages evangelism. Because you know that the Lord's going to get his sheep. We just don't know who they are. I was listening to Milton Howard this morning. Oh, Milton Howard, oh my. If you get a chance to listen to him, he's from Texas. And he preaches in Ball, Louisiana. And he just kept saying, Come to Christ. Cry out. Cry out. Save me, Lord, if you don't know.

Do you know, he was mentioning that the shortest prayers in the Bible, the longest prayer in the Bible is the dedication of the temple to the Lord. And the longest prayer of our Lord is about five minutes, and the dedication prayer is about six minutes. And then you see all these other prayers.

Right? Lord, just remember me. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And he said, you know, we can cry out all day long. People say, oh, but pray. I got to go pray and got to go spend 50 minutes or an hour. I cry out to God all day. Do you? Oh, Lord, help me. Give me strength. I praise you for redeeming me. Oh my, it's wonderful, isn't it?

So, we know that in the Old and the New Testament, there was the sacrificial system, which could never take away sins, but they pointed to the one who would take away sins, the Lord Jesus Christ. With that in mind, let's turn to the book of Ephesians. We'll look at our verse which brings forth that the born-again, blood-washed saint is redeemed, redeemed, delivered, deliverance by the payment of a ransom. We've been redeemed, and that ransom is the blood of Christ.

And this is for those who are trusting in Christ. It's not written to the whole world. It's written to believers. It's written to the believers at Ephesus. It wasn't written to the whole city of Ephesus, but it was written to believers. And here we are. We're born-again, blood-washed believers, right? So let's read. Read from verses 3 to 8. Paul writes this to the Ephesians.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Note that that's past tense already, right? According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise, the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have, we currently have this, redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, wherein he is abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Now, why did we who are the people of God have to be redeemed? Someone might ask us that. Why did you have to be redeemed? Why? Well, it's because we're born sinners, aren't we? We're born dead in trespasses and sins, along with all of mankind, whether they believe it or not.

There was a time I had no idea that I was born in sin. I had no idea that I was in bondage to sin. Brother Charlie, we didn't think we were in bondage to sin when we were younger, did we? We were just going doing whatever we wanted to do. And then when the Lord saves us, we find out, man, we were so bound up with sin, it wasn't funny. And even now, everything we do is tainted with sin. My. All of mankind is born into this world in bondage to sin, in bondage to Satan, in bondage to the law of God, and we cannot free ourselves. We cannot free ourselves. My, therefore, Christ, who is the Word of God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, becomes a man, to come and to pay the ransom price for our souls, to deliver us from the bondage of sin. Isn't that magnificent? And we know he's done it because we've received the forgiveness of all our sins. I'll tell you, this is the greatest news.

I was watching some videos yesterday. Oh my goodness, the things people do just to try to get on fame and all that in this world. And then they say, well, this one was put garlic up your nostrils, because it's supposed to clear your sinuses. Well, they were finding out that it's burning the inside of their nose. And millions of people are doing this, because some guy on the internet said, oh, this will help your sinuses.

There's even more. I ain't even going to go into that. But I'm sitting there thinking, I'm watching this thing with Vicki, and I almost said, I didn't say it out loud, but I thought in my head, I'm thinking, you know, we tell them about Christ, and he's real. And they say, I don't want to hear that. but some guy tells them to put garlic up their nose and they try it? How blackened are our minds, right?

It's incredible. And that's just one little thing that people, there's so many things out there, people say, well, do this and do that. My, you guys are loving it. It's true though, isn't it? Just crazy things. And we tell them about Christ, the only Savior of the world. And they say, you guys are crazy. Isn't that wild?

But we were there, right? And what it is, is their minds are darkened, blackened, like ours were, to the things of God. to the things of God. But look at this. Look at, let's look at verse 7. In whom, in whom, that's Christ, we have redemption. We have it, beloved. Paul's writing to these Ephesians.

They're, they're ex-idol worshipers. They used to be bowing down. They're a bunch of pagans. And he tells them because now that they're born again, right? By an operation of God. He says, look at this. In whom we have redemption. We, we have this. Through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of, we could say, God's grace. His grace.

Now think of this, God alone devised this plan of redemption, didn't He? And He put it into action. He put it into action. And He's devised a plan for chosen sinners who don't deserve salvation, but yet He gives it. And what it is, is he's devised this plan of salvation that his son would come into the world and redeem us, become a man, and redeem us by his blood, giving his life for us. Right? And when Adam fell, that didn't catch God by surprise. No, because we fell with him, right? And now we need a Redeemer. Now we need to be reconciled back to God.

Remember he put coats of skin on them? That pictures us being covered in the righteousness of Christ. The death of an innocent one. Come by blood, didn't it? Oh my, pictures Christ. So we need to be reconciled back to God after our fallen Adam. Now, when sin is revealed to we who are the born again blood washed saints of God, One of the things revealed to us by the Holy Spirit of God is our hopelessness to save ourselves. Our hopelessness to save ourselves. We could have been in religion. We could have just been lost sinners. We could have been religious lost sinners. I don't know where we were at, but we were all lost.

And God revealed the hopelessness, the hopelessness of our trying to save ourselves. And this is the very reason why we are in need of redemption. This is why we need to be purchased and redeemed from all our sins. In other words, God's people need deliverance by payment of a ransom. There's a stipulated price that God the Father requires for the ransom of our souls. And it's the blood of his son. My. It's the blood of his son.

And what were we in bondage to? Well, to our sin, again, to Satan, to the law. And we had to be redeemed out from under that, right? Scripture says we're redeemed out from under the law now. Isn't that wonderful? That's wonderful. So let we who are the redeemed of the Lord rejoice, because in Christ, Christians' ransoms have been paid. The ransom for our souls has been paid in full. Paid in full. Overabundantly paid. It's amazing. So the ransom that we could never pay is being paid for.

Oh, my. then It's absolutely amazing You know the scripture says we've been bought with a price turn if you would the Hebrews chapter 9 Scripture says we've been bought with a price and that price is the precious blood of Christ Now the Apostle Paul takes up an Old Testament language of sacrifice and blood to show how the death of Christ fulfills the law and the prophets The design of the Old Testament sacrifices in the system was propitiation as a result of expiation. So someone had to make an atonement or something had to make an atonement for the sins of a people. But we're told in Hebrews that that blood that was shed, those animals could never take away sin.

But they were pointing to the Messiah. They were pointing to Brother Kevin, to the one who'd take away all our sins. Look at Hebrews chapter 9. And remember, this is by inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. He's the true author of these words. And almost, sorry, verse 22, Hebrews 9, verse 22.

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood. And without shedding the blood, there's no remission. Look at that. There's no remission without blood. Remember, Cain bought a bloodless sacrifice. Abel bought the proper one. Blood. Blood of the Lamb.

It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself. Oh, look at this. Now do appear in the presence of God for us, nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others. So every year the high priest would have to go in and offer sacrifice for the people.

Oh, look at, look at verse 26. For then must he often have entered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away, what? Sin by the sacrifice of himself. Now he was sinless, so whose sins was he putting away? He's putting away our sins, beloved. Look at that, by the sacrifice of himself. God provided the lamb, didn't he? God himself. Remember, Abraham told Isaac, God will provide a lamb. God will provide himself a lamb.

He did, didn't he? So rejoice, beloved. Our mediator is in heaven. He's risen again. And he's not entered into a place made by human hands. He's entered into heaven, beloved. He's entered into heaven. When he rose from the dead, he went right to glory. My, to appear in the presence of God on our behalf, on our behalf, beloved.

You know, it's not necessary for him to offer more than one sacrifice. His sacrifice is so incredible, so satisfying to God, that he only went to the cross once. It's already done. Catholics believe they pull Christ out of heaven and they offer him up in the bread and wine every week. No. He said it's finished, didn't he, Brother Charlie? And that means it's done. Praise his mighty name. Hmm. And look at that. He came to put away.

Sin by the sacrifice of himself, and he did it willingly because he loves us with an everlasting love. Throbbing in his heart. As he's dying on the cross. And what a manifestation of love for us, right? The sinless one dying for we who are the lawbreakers. Oh my. The just one put away the sins of the unjust. The sinless one died for sinners. This, I'll tell you what, this is the most wonderful news anyone can hear in this world. And so many people say, I don't want nothing to do with that. And we did before the Lord saved us. But see, there's hope as long as they're breathing, isn't there? Yeah. Oh, yeah. My.

And where is he now? Well, he's risen. And he's mediating for us. He's our mediator between God. It's wonderful. You know, men die just once and face the judgment. So Christ was once offered. He was offered. He offered himself up, a ransom for our souls by the sacrifice of himself. And he put away our sins. He bore them. And he put them away.

When I see the blood, I'll pass over them. God says that to us now. When I see the blood of my son, I'll pass over you. It's all the Lord. It's all our King. He fully paid our sins, paid everything God demanded for them, and he put them away. They're gone. I just wish I could live in that. I got to remind myself all the time.

Do you? And you know what it does? It fills my heart with joy. Amidst the sorrow of this world, to know that our sins are all forgiven and to know one day we are going to leave this world and be in the presence of the Lord because he redeemed us with his precious blood. Oh, my. So let us constantly put this before each other. We're redeemed by the blood of Christ. I know my redeemer liveth. Oh, by the grace of God, I know.

And I'm going to see him, are you? Yeah. Oh, my. That's one of my favorite portions over there when Job says that. I know my Redeemer liveth. Man, there was a time when we didn't know that, didn't we? Now we do, brother. Oh! My! It's so wonderful! Oh, listen to this.

In 1 Corinthians 6, 20, if you want to write down the reference, it's, For ye are bought with a price. A ransom price. You bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's and then again in 1st Corinthians 7 22 it says For he that is called in the Lord being a servant in the Lord's is the Lord's freemen likewise also He that is called being free is Christ's servant We're free men And yet we're willing servants of the Most High King, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in 1 Corinthians 7, 23, it says, You are bought with a price. Be not ye the servants of man. We're not man pleasers. We don't serve man. We're bought with a price.

Precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, some might ask us, well, what is the price? What is the price? Well, the price that's being paid is the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in our text, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.

Isn't that wonderful? It's wonderful. In Beloved of God, this verse summarizes the essence of the Christian gospel. And the meaning is straightforward, but it needs to be explained so that we avoid heresy. Just look how plain these words are, in whom we have redemption. We can't redeem ourselves. In whom we have redemption, that's Christ. The forgiveness of sins.

And how is it? It's not by our works, is it? No. People say, well, I believe I'm redeemed by Christ, but I got to endure to the end. Well, if you're a believer, you're going to endure to the end, because he's going to keep you. Because you can't keep yourself, and neither can I. And we have forgiveness of all our sins, and it's through the blood of Christ, but look what it's according to.

The riches of God's grace. Do you know that's an inexhaustible source? Brian, we pray for grace all the time, don't we? But we will never exhaust the grace of God. You know, I can't tell you how many situations I'll be in, and I'm just quietly praying, you know, Lord, give me grace. Like when someone calls me a false prophet or something, false preacher, that gets me a little riled up. But I always say, Lord, give me grace. I was right where they were.

Right? Or people say all kinds of weird things that you have to do. During COVID, they say, oh, don't get the shot. It's the mark of the beast. Oh, I'm already marked by God, so I'm not worried about that. It's just another lie, man pedals. But it hurts when people say silly stuff like that, doesn't it? It affects us. Lord, give me grace. I want to lash out. But I know that wouldn't be good. Give me grace. I pray that all the time. Give me strength, grace and strength. In this verse, again, it summarizes the essence of the Christian gospel, which is we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, not by anything we do. We cannot save ourselves. We can't make ourselves Christians.

I had a guy this week, you know what he told me? You gotta let God save you. Told me that, right to my face. Told the guys I was sitting with, you gotta let God save you. And I said, I looked at him, I couldn't be quiet. I looked at him and I said, you know what?

If you have to let God do anything, you don't know God. And I said, my God, I wouldn't even say I had to let him do anything, because he does whatever he pleases. And I said, if you're God, if you, and I honestly told him this, and he just said, oh, be quiet, quiet, quiet. Of course, that's what they, you know. But I said, look, listen, if you have to let God do something, you don't have the God of the Bible.

You don't. See, he was telling me he had to let God save him. Well, we're gonna find out, we're gonna find out in Sunday morning that there's none that seeketh after God. So, Travis, if we had to let God do something, we'd be waiting a long time. We'd perish in our sins. Amen. Exactly right.

And that's what my buddy beside me, who doesn't agree with everything we say, he said, he said, Paul, you just made, you made yourself up here and you made God down here. And then I said, yeah, the opposite is true. God's up here and we're down here in the dust, like you said. So he made himself sovereign. And he was telling me what he believes, right? There's people who believe this, beloved. We don't let God do nothing, do we? He does whatever He wants. And I'm just thankful He chose to save me, aren't you? Oh, man.

So we see here in this verse, in whom? Well, in whom that refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're going to see verses 3 to 6 deals with God the Father with us. Verses 7 to 12 discusses the role of the Son. So now we're in the role of the Son in verses 13 to 14 discuss the role of the Holy Spirit in our salvation. And we can sum up because of these first 14 verses that salvation's of the Lord.

It's His doing. He saves. He saves. We can't save ourselves. We can't make ourselves Christians through any efforts of us. Salvation is only in and through the Lord Jesus Christ alone, period. End of story. Why? Why? You know, Jesus didn't come to tell us, well, God's willing to save you. He didn't say that at all.

And we're saved by what he's done for us, aren't we? He saved us from our sins. All our salvation is in Christ alone. All of it. We're redeemed by his perfect work. We're redeemed by his blood being shed as a ransom price for our souls. And again, ransom or redemption means a deliverance by a payment.

We've been delivered from our sins. We've been delivered from the law of God. We've been delivered from Satan's grip. We've been delivered from the bondage of sin. Now sin's still with us, but it doesn't have the reign over us it once had. And we still sin all the time, but it doesn't have that. Now we fight sin now, don't we? We notice it, and we ask God, oh Lord, please forgive me. Even though it's already under the blood, What did Henry Mahan use to say? We're saved, we're being saved, and we will be saved. I love that. Oh my. So the reference to Christ's blood emphasizes that his death fulfilled the Old Testament sacrifices which were pointed to him.

They were shadows. He's the substance. Remember, I've mentioned this before when we were walking along in the summertime or spring. Our shadow may sometimes go before us in front of a building. And then we come around the corner and somebody says, Oh, there you are. Brian, there you are. Come here. And there's the substance. But the shadow came before. Same with the Old Testament sacrifices. And again, all those sacrifices couldn't take away sin. Turn, if you would, to Hebrews chapter 10. We're finished with this. Hebrews chapter 10.

Christ's blood is the ultimate ransom price, is what God demanded for the payment of our sins. What animal sacrifices could never do, Christ's precious blood paid for our sins and put away our sins. And remember, all those sacrifices, they pointed to Christ and they foreshadowed Christ coming to save us from our sins. Hebrews chapter 10, verses 10 to 13.

By the witch will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, and that's once for all the elect of all the ages. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, remember, he's sinless too. So he's offering himself up as a sacrifice for all the sins of all the elect forever, sat down on the right hand of God.

Look at that. After he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, His one sacrifice put away our sins. And not just ours, but a number that no man can number. So by what he's done, he is the perfect substitute in our room and place. Look at this, from henceforth, and sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting to his enemies be made his footstool. So our salvation is solely upon what Christ has done. and his shed blood paid the ransom price for our souls by his perfect sacrifice in our room and place. Oh my. And this has nothing to do with any of our efforts. Our efforts have no bearing on our salvation. Before we're saved and after.

Yeah, you tell that to a bunch of religious folks, they lose their minds. We willingly serve Christ, don't we? we willingly encourage one another in Christ. In his death on the cross and the shedding of his blood is the price paid to ransom our souls and to save us from our sins and to reconcile us back to God. We trust in Christ's sacrifice alone, not in our own supposed goodness or works, We trust in Christ alone to be saved.

And one day, our faith shall become sight. You know, we're going to say hallelujah, aren't we? Oh, when we see our King face to face. Brother Travis, would you close us in prayer? Thank you for the sacrifice you've made for us. We are so undeserving of that sacrifice. Your full redemption of all of our sins. Amen. Thank you, Brother Travis.