So good morning. If you'd open
your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter 1, where our lesson will
be taken from this morning. Ephesians chapter 1. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord together. Our Father, we come before you
this morning a thankful people. How thankful we are for your
mercy and grace you've purposed for your people and our Lord
Jesus Christ. I thank you for revealing your
son to us and in us. And so many here, Father, you've
been so merciful, so gracious. We're thankful. Father, we're
thankful for your keeping grace, your preserving grace. We thank
you that you continue to feed and instruct your people through
the preaching of your word. You've given us a place where
we can meet together and worship in peace and unity. And Father,
we're thankful. We are a thankful people. But
Father, we're also a poor and a needy people in this flesh.
And how we pray that this morning you'd open up your storehouses
of grace and you'd reveal to us one more time the Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, I pray that you would
enable me to rightly divide the word of truth. to preach the
truth, to preach Christ with a heart of love for thee and
love for your people, a compassion for sinners. Father, I pray you
give us all a hearing ear and a believing heart. Enable us
to feast upon the Lord Jesus Christ this morning. Find our
hope and rest and peace in Him. What we pray for ourselves, Father,
we pray for our children's classes, Gospel, wherever it's preached
this morning, Father, bless your word. Cause it to run well, to
show forth your glory in this dark day in which we live. Comforting
the hearts of your people and save and instruct according to
thy will. Father, we thank you for the
many blessings of this life, how richly you've blessed us
and we thank you. And we dare not, Father, sin
against thee and forgetting to Pray for your people that you've
brought into the valley of trouble and trial. Father, we pray that
you'd deliver, that you'd heal, that you'd comfort, and that
above all, Father, you'd give your people grace that's sufficient
for the trial that you've sent their way. Comfort their hearts
with your presence, we pray. And all these things we ask in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for his sake and his glory, we
pray. Amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
Who First Trusted in Christ. I took my title from verse 12
of Ephesians 1, which says that we should be to the praise of
his glory who first trusted in Christ. Now, when Lord first
and finally, I would say finally, showed me the real meaning of
this verse, it opened up the gospel for me in a whole way
that I had not seen before. And I want us to look at these
verses this morning and see what a blessing it is for God's people,
that the first person who ever trusted in Christ the Savior
is God the Father. The first one to trust in Christ,
it wasn't the Jews, it wasn't Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. He's
not talking about the apostles here. The first person to trust
in Christ was God the Father. And I'll tell you how that came
to be. Before God created anything,
Almighty God entered into a covenant of grace. Now the covenant of
grace, it's a covenant. It's a promise between God and
God. It's a contract. It's a promise
that God made to God. Now God knew he entered into
this covenant because he knew after he created man in the garden,
he knew that Adam would fall and he'd plunge his whole race
into sin and death. But in his mercy and his love
for sinners, God the Father elected a people that he would save out
of Adam's fallen race. They wouldn't do anything ever.
He knew this. They'd never do anything to deserve
such mercy, such grace, and such love. Matter of fact, just the
opposite. Everything they would do deserves
God's wrath. But the Father chose to save
them anyway. He chose to have mercy on some.
The Father chose those people, and he gave those people to his
son to save. He gave his son the responsibility
to save those people. And the father promised his son,
son, I'll accept these people. If you come into flesh and you
obey the law for them, Adam's going to make them sinners by
his disobedience. But by your obedience, you can
make them righteous. I'll accept them if you make
them righteous by your obedience. And son, something's got to be
done with their sin. You can make them righteous by
your obedience, but something's got to be done with their sin.
You're going to have to be made sin for this people. You're going
to take all of the sin of all of these people that I've chosen
to save. You're going to have to take that sin into your body
upon the tree. And you're going to have to put
it away by your blood, by your sacrifice for their sin. Now,
that was the father's promise to the son. And the son believed
his father. He believed his father would
do what he said he'd do. And the son said, father, I'll do
everything that you just said. I'll do everything that you require
in order to save these people that you've given me from their
sin. And the father trusted the son to do what he said he'd do. That's how the father first trusted
in the son. And you know, we have a beautiful
picture of that in the Old Testament. We won't go back and read it.
It covers a lot of verses, but you were meant, you know, the
story of Joseph and his brother sold him into slavery in Egypt,
and he became the king, the second in command of all of Egypt. Remember
those sons went down, the Jacob's sons went down there to buy bread.
They didn't know they were dealing with Joseph. They thought they
were just dealing, you know, with this king. And the king
kept their oldest brother, Simeon. He kept him kind of there as
a prisoner and said, I'll release him. And you come back to buy
bread again, you bring your younger brother. You bring Benjamin up
here. If you do, I'll sell you food.
If you don't bring Benjamin with you, I won't sell you food and
I won't release Simeon, your brother, from jail. Well, they
ran out of food. It was time for them to go back
down to Egypt again a second time and get bread. And Jacob
said, I'm through sending my sons with you boys. Every time
I send one of my sons away with you, it seems like you come back
missing one. Joseph is not, Simeon's not. I'm not sending Benjamin
with you. And if he hadn't sent Benjamin
down there to Egypt, they starved to death. And Judah came to his
father and said, father, send the lad with me. I'll be surety
for you. And Jacob trusted Judah to be
surety for Benjamin. And he sent him down there to
Egypt. That's no mistake. It's not just a coincidence.
Which one of these sons went to his father and said, father,
send him with me. I'll be surety for him. It's
Judah. You who came from the tribe of
Judah are Lord Jesus Christ. The surety for his people. Jacob
trusted Judah. And look how that family was
blessed because Jacob trusted Judah to be the surety for Benjamin.
They went down there to Egypt and they found out their brother's
not dead. He's the king. The whole family was restored
to Joseph. They went down there to Egypt
and boy, they had the best of the land. They were taken care
of so well in Egypt. And as long as there lived a
Pharaoh, who at some point during his lifetime knew Joseph, all
was well with Jacob's family, wasn't it? For Joseph's sake. All that happened because Jacob
trusted Judah to be the surety for Benjamin. And that story
is given to us as a picture. These are the blessings. You
think of all the blessings that have come to God's elect because
the father trusted the son to do what he promised to do in
the covenant of grace. The father trusted his son to
redeem those people, and he did. And now, in Adam, we're cut off
from God, aren't we? Thrust out of the garden, and
Christ was restored back to the father. The father trusted his
son to undo everything that Adam had done to him by their sin.
And think of all the blessings. Every spiritual blessing we have
has come from that covenant of grace where the father first
trusted the son to do what he promised to do to redeem his
people from their sin. See, the father did not trust
his son in vain. The son did what he promised
to do. And in our text this morning, I see four blessed results of
Christ keeping his promise to his father. The first one is
this. Because the Father trusted the
Son, all of God's elect are gonna appear with Christ in glory.
Look at verse 10, Ephesians 1. Then in dispensation of the fullness
of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. Now the dispensation of the fullness
of times means this, that when God has done in time, everything
that he purposed to do before creation. Then God's going to
bring to pass his main purpose. He's going to bring to pass what
he has intended to do all along. God's going to gather all of
his people together in glory. All of those people, they're
not going to be like Adam anymore. They're all going to be made
just like Christ. And they're all going to be brought
together to worship him face to face eternally. and they're
going to be able to do it perfectly. They have no more sin, no more
sin nature. They're going to be there worshiping
Christ face to face perfectly. Can you imagine not having your
mind wander when the gospel is being preached? Can you imagine
what the, that's what it would be like. And everyone there will
have one purpose. Everyone there in glory around
the throne of God will have one purpose. Their purpose is to
glorify the Son, to glorify and praise their Redeemer. That's
the reason God has done everything that he's done, from creation
to whenever the dispensation of the fullness of times is,
whenever the end of God's purpose to wrap this thing up is. Everything
God has done in that time has been done for this purpose, that
we would praise his Son. That's what he says in verse
six. God's done all this to the praise of the glory of his grace,
wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. That's the reason
God's done everything he's done is to glorify his son. And God
brings all of his people together in glory. They're going to see
the glory of Christ clearly. No more through a glass darkly.
We're going to see clearly. And it's not just going to be
our responsibility. to praise the Savior. It's going
to be our joy. It's going to be our joy to sing
the praises of our Redeemer. When God has done everything
that he purposed to do, he's going to sum this whole thing
up. John Gill says that's the meanings of the words here in
this verse 10. God's going to sum it all up.
And this is the sum of it all. It's the glory of Christ. You
know, everything that's been done, everything that was done
in the Old Testament to start there in Old Testament, everything
that was done in the Old Testament was done for the glory of Christ.
God created Adam in the garden and God allowed him to fall.
Could God have stopped Adam from falling? Sure he could have,
but he didn't. You know why? For the glory of Christ. If we
hadn't fallen in Adam, we'd never see the glory being redeemed
in Christ. That's why God allowed that to happen. Some years passed
and God called Moses up to Mount Sinai and gave him the law. You
know why God gave the law to Moses? It wasn't so we could
earn a righteousness by keeping it. God didn't give the law so
we'd have a playbook, you know, of how to live your life. Well,
do this and don't do this. This is a good way to live your
life. That's not why God gave the law. The law was given to
show us we can't obey it. We don't have the ability to
obey it. We cannot possibly make ourselves righteous by obeying
the law. We can't possibly please God by obeying the law. The law
was given for the glory of Christ. The law was given so we'd see
how desperately we need Christ to come and obey the law for
us. We need Christ to come and shed
his blood to put our sin away. All this sin we've committed
by breaking God's law. We need Christ to come in the
flesh and obey the law for us. In our place, as our representative. And I don't know how much time
you spend thinking about this now, but if you think about it now,
it amazes us, doesn't it? That a man in the flesh could
obey God's law. for his whole life. We can't
do it for a split second. He did it for his whole life
long. That amazes us now to think of
the obedience of our Savior, doesn't it? But I'm telling you
in glory, we're going to be slack jawed at this thing. Christ came
and obeyed the law for us. And the wonder of it all is he
could obey it. And who'd he obey it for? Sinners
like you and me. We're gonna be slack jawed at
that, just praising him for that. Then God gave all the ceremonies,
the sacrifices and the ceremonies that the high priest would go
through, all these ceremonies and feast days and days that
they observed. All those things were given to
us. This is not a way you please God. This is not the religion,
the religious ceremonies that God accepts. God's not pleased
with the outward ceremonies of religion. God looks on the heart.
Why were all those ceremonies given then? If God's not pleased
by what we do outwardly, observing all these ceremonies, going through
all this religious, you know, show, if God's not pleased with
that, why did he ever give it? The purpose of us so that we'd
see the glory of Christ. We love now, now that we understand
we have the New Testament, we understand that the Old Testament
is given to us as pictures of Christ. We love to see those
things, don't we? Somebody calls me and asks me
to go someplace and preach. 99 times out of 100, the first
thing I think of is, what Old Testament type could I preach
from? I just love them. You do too. We love those Old
Testament types. Can you imagine how much more
thrilled we're going to be in glory when we see Christ as the
fulfillment of all those ceremonies? Can you imagine? Oh, it's going
to be. It'd just be rapture for our souls. Everything God did
in the New Testament, Christ coming into flesh, Christ being
born of a virgin, he is born of a virgin, so he did not partake
in Adam's sinful nature. So that by his perfect, sinless
blood, he could put away the sin of his people. What a mystery, what a glorious
thing. I know I'm preaching to the choir
here, but the incarnation of Christ is not the fact that the
Virgin gave birth to a baby in a manger and everybody has to
feel sorry this beautiful baby's been laid in a horse trough as
a cradle, as a bassinet, you know. The glory of this is God
the Father, the eternal Father appeared into flesh that he might
put away the sin of his people. And the whole rest of the New
Testament is preached to tell us what that man accomplished,
what that God man accomplished in his life, in his death, in
his burial, in his resurrection. And that he's coming again to
get those people that he redeemed to bring them to himself. And believe it or not, nothing's
changed. Everything God is doing in providence
now. You know, God's providence is
simply this. Everything that's happening in time, God's purpose
for it to happen. Just exactly like it's happened.
Whether it's something that's pleasant to us or something that's
unpleasant to us, God's purpose for it to happen exactly the
way that it's happening. Now, we don't see that now. We
don't see this now, but it's all good. It's all good. We don't understand now, how
is it that my pain and my sorrow and my heartache, how is it possible
that could work out for good? Well, you think of this. What pain, what sorrow, what
heartache have you gone through that could possibly compare to
the pain and the sorrow and the suffering of Christ our Savior?
The father brought good out of that, didn't he? Didn't he? He brought our salvation out
of it. Well, we know and we believe that God can bring good out of
my sorrow and my pain and my suffering too. I know that. I
know that. It's hard to see, isn't it? It's
just, I don't see it. I don't see the good. But just
because I don't see the good that's coming out of it, doesn't
mean it's not there now. God's bringing good out of it.
We don't see it now, do we? Not usually, but we'll see it
then. We'll see it in glory. And I'm
telling you, we're going to be awestruck to see how perfectly
our God did everything. Everything that happened in his
creation all worked together for good. And we're going to
be amazed to see it. And you know why all that happened?
Because the father first trusted the son. to redeem his people
like he promised he would. All right, number two, since
the son did everything he promised the father he would do, God's
elect are gonna receive an inheritance. Verse 11, in whom also we have
obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his
own will. Now this is the message of scripture. Salvation is by
God's grace alone. Alone, without any of our works
adding to it, without any of our works being done to help
God out. Salvation is by grace, and it's
given to God's people freely, freely, as an inheritance. I looked this word inheritance
up, and I saw this, I don't think I really ever noticed this before,
But more times than I could count in the Old Testament, when Lord's
speaking to Israel and he talks about the land that they're living
in, this is after they've left Egypt and they've come to the
land that God promised to give them. When he talked to Israel
about that land in which they live, the land he promised Abraham,
he said, I'm going to give this land to your descendants. Every
time the Lord talked about that land, you know what he called
it? The land of your inheritance, the land that you inherited,
He never called it the land you took by your military might,
did he? Now, Joshua led an army across
that place. He went to battle, didn't he?
Oh, they went to battle. But he never called it the land
you took by your military might. He said, it's the land of your
inheritance. And we know this now, that promised land, that
land that God brought Israel to. That's a picture of heaven
for all of God's people. All God's spiritual Israel are
going to live. And it will not be the land.
It will not be the place. It will not be the mansion. It
will not be the house. It will not be that we earned
by our works. It will be our inheritance. And
that's true of every blessing that God ever gives his people.
Physical blessings? What do you have God didn't give
you? What do you have God didn't give you? And some smart aleck
is going to say, well, no, no, I work to get that. Who gave
you the ability to go work? Huh? How come you're not so sick
you can't work? Who gave you the job? Have you
ever tried to find a job? That's one of the hardest things
there is in this world. Find a job. Find somebody to hire
you and give you a job. Who gave you that job? Huh? Come
on. Everything we have, God's given
us. And boy, that's especially true spiritually. God's people
have inherited every blessing that God has for a sinner. We
inherited it. We didn't earn it. We inherited
it. And you know what an inheritance is. An inheritance is something
somebody else earned. Somebody else worked. Somebody
else saved it up. Somebody else gathered it together,
and they give it to their descendants freely. That's every spiritual
blessing God's people have. Somebody else earned it. The
Lord Jesus Christ earned it. He saved it up in the storehouses
of His grace. He saved it up in the vast, measureless
storehouses of His mercy. And He gives it all to His people.
He earned it by His obedience and by His sacrifice. And He
gives it to His people freely. And it's an inheritance. Because
the testators died. The testator died in our place.
And He's given these blessings to His people freely as an inheritance. See, in the covenant of grace,
the son promised the father, father, I'm going to earn all
these blessings. I'm going to earn them by my obedience. I'm
going to earn them by my, my precious blood that I shared
as a sacrifice for my people. I'm going to earn them. I'm going
to suffer and die for my people. And the father said, when you
die, I'll give all those things to your people freely. That's
what an inheritance is. And you own this covenant of
grace, both father and son. They both held up their end of
the bargain, haven't they? God's elect inherit eternal life. We don't earn it, we inherit
it. Because Christ died the death that we deserve. God's elect
inherit righteousness. We don't earn that. Christ earned
it for us. He was made sin for us. That
what? We might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. That's given to us freely as
an inheritance. God's elect inherit redemption.
We inherit it because Christ earned it. He earned it through
the blood of his sacrifice. He bought it with his blood and
he gives it to his people freely as an inheritance. I could spend the rest of the
day just thinking up things we've inherited, the blessings God's
given his people. But let's sum it up the way scripture
sums it up. God's elect inherit everything
that Christ inherits from his father. He's the only son, so
he inherits it all. And God's people inherit all
those blessings too. All of them. They inherit everything,
every blessing God has for a sinner because we're joint heirs with
Christ. Now they're ours now. All these things are ours now.
Eternal life, righteousness, holiness, They're all ours now. But we have them by faith, don't
we? We have them by faith. We don't have them in actual
possession. We're still in these bodies of
death. But what an inheritance God's people have to look forward
to in glory. And when we have them all in
possession, you know what we're gonna sing? We're gonna sing
the praises of Christ our Savior. He earned them, and we have them
all because the father first trusted the son to earn them.
And he did, he came and did it. Then thirdly, God's elect are
given faith in Christ now. Verse 13, in whom you also trusted,
after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, in whom also after that you believed, you were sealed
with that Holy Spirit of promise. Now the father, he's the one
that first trusted his son, isn't he? And the father's completely
satisfied. His faith was not in vain. Christ
the son did everything he promised that he would do. The son established
righteousness and sanctification for his people. That pleased
his father's holiness. The blood of Christ blotted out
the sin that made God angry. The blood of Christ satisfied
God's justice. See the father's faith in his
son was well-founded and the son didn't let him down. But
what a blessing, the Holy Spirit gives faith in Christ to God's
elect. We trust Christ the same way
the Father did. We trust Christ to do everything
that he promised he would do. We trust, and here's how you
can tell, you trust Christ to do everything he promised he
would do. You don't feel compelled to add anything to it. Because
Christ did it all, just like he promised he would do. And
the spirit enables God's people to hear the gospel of Christ
and to believe him, to trust our souls to him. See, here's
the reason that we preach the gospel. The gospel is preached
to tell us who the Lord Jesus Christ is, what it is that he
accomplished for his people. And when we hear that gospel
preached, who Christ is and what he did, why he did it, where
he is now, that he did what he promised he would do. When God's
like to hear that Christ, We believe on him. We believe on
him. We cast our soul on him. I'm
telling you, since Christ came and did what he promised that
he would do, now we have someone to trust. We wouldn't have anybody
to trust if Christ didn't come, would we? But now we do. He's
came and did what he promised his father he would do, and we
have somebody we can trust. And God, the Holy Spirit, blesses
His people with faith in Christ now, right now in this life.
Isn't it a blessing that you just don't go through this veil
of tears here below without ever knowing anything about Christ
and just wake up one day in glory? I mean, I reckon God could have
done it that way if He'd have wanted to, but He didn't. That's
not the way He chose to do it. Isn't it a blessing to go through
this veil of tears trusting Christ now. I want to say this right. But if
our faith in Christ, our so-called faith in Christ, is just something
we pull out on Sunday and Wednesday, and it's something we talk about
on Sunday and Wednesday, I'm afraid it's not saving faith.
Saving faith is helpful in our everyday life. How helpful is
it in your everyday life? Just would imagine your life's
not like mine. It's not smooth sailing very
often, is it? Not very often. How helpful is
it then, in those days, those stormy days, those dark days,
those difficult days, to be able to trust Christ? Oh, it's helpful
to our everyday lives, isn't it? I know it's not perfect faith,
it's not perfect trust, but it sure is a blessing, isn't it?
It sure is a blessing. And we have that because Christ
came, because he did what he told his father that he would
do. Here's the last thing. Because Christ did what he promised
his father he would do, the father is glorified. Verse 12, that
we should be to the praise of his glory the praise of the Father
who first trusted in Christ. Look at back at John 17. John 17 verse one. The Father
is glorified because of what the Lord Jesus did as a man.
John 17 verse one. These words spake Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify
thy son that thy son also may glorify thee. The work of Christ
enabled God to be just and holy and still save his people from
their sin. That's God's glory. The life and the death of Christ
glorified every attribute of the father. We never would have
seen that if Christ didn't do what he promised his father he
would do. The father's wisdom is glorified. in the sacrifice
of Christ, didn't it? It's the Father's wisdom defined
to provide a ransom for the souls of sinners. We never would have
seen a way to, in justice, ransom our souls if we hadn't seen Christ
die. The death of Christ glorifies
the wisdom of God. It glorifies the grace of God.
It glorifies the justice of God. Only in the death of Christ can
we see justice and grace exalted at the same time. and the death
of Christ. And the son's glorified too.
The son's glorified because he accomplished his perfect work
of redemption. And one day, we're going to see,
I know we know it now, but boy, we're going to see it. We're
going to experience it. The death of Christ was not in
vain. The work of Christ is not in vain. The promise of Christ
to his father was not in vain. One day, every last person for
whom Christ died, is going to be glorified. We're going to
be in a perfect body in a perfect place. And this is what glory
will be for God's people. It's going to be this is glory.
That we be made just like Christ. And we're able to worship our
God perfectly. And all that's going to happen.
That's going to be our experience. That's going to be the end of
the story of every believer. Because of what happened before
creation, the father first trusted the son, and the son didn't let
him down. May the Lord bless you.