I'd like for you to turn back
with me to Ephesians chapter 4. I'm going to focus most of my
attention this morning on verses 20 and 21. But these verses have some things
that the Apostle established before he gets to them. In these verses, he talks about
learning Christ, hearing Christ, being taught by Christ as the
truth is in Christ. Everything that Paul says in
these two verses has to do with knowing hearing and being taught
by a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's my subject this morning,
as the truth is in him. In the earlier verses of this
chapter, Paul deals with the ascension gifts of our risen
Savior, which he states here being fourfold. There was a lot
of gifts that our ascended Lord gave. He gave us the Holy Spirit. He gave us a lot of things. But
here he's going to focus on four things. The first thing is apostles.
He gave some apostles. He gave some prophets. Some evangelists. and some pastor teachers. Now these are the means that
God has ordained to teach us the gospel. These are the means
that God's ordained to bring us to faith in Christ. He's not
going to work apart from them. These are the means that he's
going to use. The first two, the apostles and prophets, have
to do with the Word of God. The prophets, all their writings
make up the Old Testament. You know, we read over here in
the book of Ephesians and the book of Colossians and wherever
we happen to be at the time, and in the back of our mind,
we're thinking, you know, that we're reading the whole of Scripture,
but they didn't have the whole of Scripture. These men were
preaching at this time and writing these things based completely
on the prophets of the Old Testament. And then when they wrote, God
inspired these apostles to write in such a fashion as that we
can understand what these prophets were talking about. This one
who's now appeared and the reason for his coming and who he is
and what he did and where he's at. They're gonna tell us what
these Old Testament prophecies that men take today and don't
understand, and they draw graphs, and this is gonna happen, and
wheels, and they get all these things. Boy, the crowds gather
in, and they're looking, and they grab a little piece of Micah,
and a little piece of Daniel, and a little piece of something
else, and this is what's gonna happen, and then in the year
2042, boom, it's all gonna come to an end. That's not what the prophets
had to say. Listen to what Paul said the
prophets say. To him give all the prophets
witness that whosoever believeth on him. Their sins are taken away. That's
what these prophets were talking about. They were talking about
the person of Christ. They were talking about his appearing
as a man on this earth and the work that he came to do and his
accomplishing of that work and that that work was the eternal
purpose of God and he accomplished these things and when he had
finished these things, God raised him from the dead and he ascended
up into heaven. And this ascended Christ, this
victorious Christ, this one who, he said, all power given unto
me in heaven and earth. Now you go preach. This ascended
Christ, this victorious Christ, this glorious son of God, God
and man in one person, gave some gifts to the church. He gave
them his prophets, he gave them his apostles so they could understand
the prophets, and then he sent some evangelists. Paul was an
evangelist. He went out into places where
there were no churches and he preached to heathen idolaters. We have one that I've been acquainted
with for more than 50 years. He went down to Mexico when he
was a young man and now there's 40 native churches down there
in Mexico established under this man and he's still alive in his
80s or 90s and still preaching. The second two have to do with
the calling out of God's elect and their being here in this
present evil world. And he tells us in verse 12,
they were given for the perfecting of the saints. What on earth
does that mean? Does that mean that Somehow through
some kind of progressive sanctification and obedience to the law that
we arrive at some kind of perfection before God? No. No. He tells us that all of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. He tells us that your flesh,
that which is flesh is flesh, that which is spirit is spirit.
The flesh is contrary with the spirit so that you and I cannot
do the things that we would in either direction. I can't be
as evil as my flesh would have me to be, but I can't be as holy
as the spirit would have me to be. These are contrary, the one
to the other. What he's talking about here,
this perfecting of the saints, is the completion of their calling. God has purposed to save a people. He tells us that over and over
and over in the scriptures. That word election is not just
used as a misinterpretation over here in one of the books. It's
that word election, elected, elect, is mentioned 27 times
in the scriptures. The only reason we want to ignore
it and deny it because it don't fit in with our way of thinking. We like to think about universal
salvation. There's no such thing. Bible
doesn't, it doesn't even hint at any kind of universal salvation. If you go over and read after
a while when you get home, I don't have time to expound from it,
but over there in John chapter 10, This was a committee that
they elected and trained so that they could spot the Christ and
they'd know who the Christ was when they saw Him. And that was
their job, the Sanhedrin. And they'd go out and they were
looking for the Christ and they just kept watching Him and hearing
Him and He didn't fit anything that fit their idea of who the
Christ would be. And finally, in frustration,
they looked at Him and they said, If Thou be the Christ, tell us
plainly. He said, I told you. I told you. I told you plainly. But you believe
not. Now listen, because you're not
my sheep. As I sit under you, my sheep
hear my voice. And I know them. And I call them,
and they follow me. And nobody's going to pluck them
out of my hand. And nobody's going to pluck them
out of my father's hand. He's greater than all. God has
an elect, He has a people, He chose them before the foundation
of the world. Read Ephesians chapter 1. When He's talking about the perfection
of the saints here, He's talking about the completion of His body,
the church, the calling out of His elect. Those days, he said, shall not
be shortened except for what? The elect's sake. That's what
he's doing. He's calling out his elect. He's calling all those. He's
going to gather them all who have a part in it, all who are
heirs together with Christ and his people. And then also their
perfection in Christ, which is made known to them by evangelists
and pastor teachers. is that perfection which they
have in Christ by faith. There's only one way to be saved
before God, and that's to be perfect. He said of the sacrifice, it
must be perfect to be accepted. There must be a perfection, and
I can't generate it. You can't generate it. Nobody
can generate. With man, it's impossible. But
perfection was achieved in the Savior. He perfectly obeyed the
law. He perfectly obeyed God. He perfectly
loved God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. And
he perfectly atoned for our sins. And this is what the Gospel does. It lets you in on this. It shows you that you were buried
with Him and raised with Him and ascended up to heaven and
you're seated with Him in the heavenlies. It's all done by
covenant union in Christ. God chose you and put you in
His Son. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as he has
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. Isn't that what
that says? And then secondly, he says these
men were given for the work of the ministry just as there was
duties and service to be performed by that common priesthood, and
they were set apart in the old church just for that purpose.
They ministered about the tabernacle, and they brought in the showbread,
and they served God, this priesthood did, and they were one tribe
set apart for nothing but that. And all the rest of them supported
them. All the rest of them took care
of them, and they were afforded to eat of the things that was
put on the altar and so on. And even so, the work of the
ministry is carried out by these men he calls evangelists and
pastor-teachers. And they are the responsibility
of all the churches, not just a single local church, but it's
every man's responsibility. If we hear or know of a pastor
somewhere in need, we send our support to him. And then thirdly,
God gave these men for the edifying of the body of Christ. What's
that mean? He teaches them. He teaches them. When our Lord said in John chapter
six that his elect should all be taught of the Father, this
is what he's talking about. In James chapter one, he said,
ever good gift and ever perfect gift cometh down from the Father
of lights, with whom is no bearableness, neither shadow of turning. Therefore,
be careful how you hear. Be careful how you hear. And
these gifts that are given by Christ are given through Christ
by the Father. And they're all gonna be taught,
all His people are gonna be taught of God. And this is the means
that God has set apart to teach, and this is how He's gonna teach,
and this is what He's gonna teach. He's gonna teach them about His
Son. They're set apart by the will and power of God for the
edifying of the body of Christ, verse 13. How long is he going
to continue to do that? Till we all come in the unity
of the faith. Now my friend, I'm going to tell
you something. You're going to leave here, especially you young
people, you're going to go out here in the world and people
are going to tell you that there's a little good in all these churches.
that all of these churches out here are around, this one, that
one, no matter what the denomination is, no matter what it is they're
preaching, there's a little bit of good in there and God's using
them. That's just not so. I read to you just a few moments
ago, there's just one faith. There's not 50 faiths, there's
one faith. And here he's talking about the
value of these men that he's given is to bring us, to bring
God's people, to bring God's elect into the unity of the faith. There's a unity of the faith.
God's people all believe the same thing. We don't all believe
something different, we believe the same thing. We believe Christ is the Son
of God. We believe that God has purposed all these things before
the foundation of the world. We believe that Christ, when
He redeemed us, He redeemed us. He didn't try to redeem us. He
didn't partly redeem us. He redeemed us. Till we all come in the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge, now watch this, of the Son of
God. Not just knowledge in general,
not just knowledge of the Bible. My dad studied this Bible, read
this Bible, but he didn't know anything at all about Christ.
But he could tell you all the genealogies, he could tell you
whose nephew was nephew of who and so on all down the line.
He could give you fact after fact after fact going through
what we call trivia today. He could tell you anything you
want to know about that, but he couldn't tell you anything
at all about Christ. Whatever this unity of the faith
is, it has to do with the knowledge of the Son of God. John said, and we know that the
Son of God has come and given us an understanding that we may
know Him that's true. What do I know about God? Everything
that I've learned in Christ. That's all I know about God.
I've never seen God, I've never heard God. Everything I know
about God, I've learned in Christ. Will God punish sin? He punished
his son. Will God compromise his name?
He wouldn't to save his son. Everything I know about God,
I've learned in Christ. And whatever this unity of the
faith is, it has to do with the unity of our knowledge of the
Son of God as it relates to the saving faith of God's elect and
their perfection in Christ. It takes a perfect righteousness
to be accepted of God, and you can't produce it. Now come on, you really believe we pray a
prayer? Do you really believe that that
prayer has such a value in it and God looks at it and approves
it and accepts it as a righteous prayer? No way. He tells us in
the book of Romans in chapter 8, he said, we don't even know
what to pray for. Isn't that what it says? He has
to give us the Spirit of God who makes intercession for us
with groanings and things that cannot be uttered. I don't know
what to pray for. I pray for what I want, and I try to pray, but I can't
pray apart from His Spirit. It takes His Spirit. God has
to teach us these things. We don't know anything about
it. This has to do with the knowledge
of the Son of God. And it takes a perfect righteousness
to be accepted of God, not the best that you can do. If God
could accept the best you can do, why did he send his son? There would have been no need
for him to come and die if God could accept the best you could
do. He would have just accepted the
best you can do and been satisfied, wouldn't he? No, he had to send
his son. The best we can do, man at his
best state, the scripture said, is altogether vanity. Our best is called filthy rags. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. We must have the righteousness
of God, that perfect, unbroken, unflawed righteousness. And the
only place you can find it is in Christ. And then to be saved, I must
have a perfect justification. God has to justify me. No man, no woman will ever enter
into the presence of God and be welcomed into his favor and
his eternal fellowship so long as they have any sin. No sin. That's it. No sin, that's what he'll be
saying. He'll justify the man who has
no sin. By one man, Paul said, sin entered
into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all
men for that all have sinned. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. The glory of God's justice is
his perfection. And you can't satisfy God. Now
you better listen to me. The scripture says that torment
in hell is everlasting. I'm not trying to tell you that
to frighten you. I'm trying to tell you that to
make a point. The reason it's everlasting is
because man's suffering cannot satisfy God. If he could be satisfied,
somewhere down the road he'd take that man out of hell. But
the scripture said it's everlasting punishment. everlasting to me. And the reason is because you
could never satisfy God. Well, I'll just pay what I owe
and then I'll be, no, you won't ever pay what you owe. You'll
just keep on paying and paying and paying and paying forever.
But Christ satisfied the justice of God when he died on the cross. He satisfied the Father. He satisfied
his justice. He satisfied his righteousness.
And that's what Paul said, over there in Romans 3, 23, all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified
freely by his grace. How do we do that? Through the
redemption that's in Christ Jesus. Whom God has set forth to be
a propitiation for our sin through faith in His blood. That which can satisfy His offended
character. That which can enable Him to
show forgiveness. And this is found through faith
in His blood. It's not faith in your faith.
It's faith in his blood, his sufficiency, his glory, his honor,
his name. You see what Paul's saying? If
so be you've learned Christ, been taught by Christ as the
truth is in Christ. Preachers speak the truth in love to those who will hear
Him. Verse 15, that they may grow up into Him
in all things until they all come into the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. What in the world is he talking
about? He's talking about that man of faith. Christ in you,
the hope of glory. He's talking about that all sufficient
victorious Christ in your heart. He's not talking here about your
outward righteousness and your outward obedience and whatever
else it is that makes you miserable. He's talking about the one who
gave you a righteousness, and the one who justified you, and
the one whose servant you are, and he's your Lord, who loved
you with an everlasting love. We grow up into him, we grow
up, what's being done in you is Christ is being formed in
you. You're not being formed into
Christ, Christ's being formed in you. You ain't worth killing. We're just maggots, the scripture
said, worms, worthless worms. What is man that he should be
noticed by God, that he should be justified by God, be righteous? He's just a worm. That's all
he is. But in Him, God creates by faith,
in Him, Christ, that's my hope. That's my hope. In Him, Colossians 2, 3, are
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. These men are
given that God's people should be rooted and built up in Him
and established in the faith, for in Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and we're complete in Him. And the result of this ministry,
the purpose of it, the reason for it, here in Ephesians 4,
17, that ye henceforth walk not as these other Gentiles walk. You're standing here in a dark
room. You can't see your hand in front of you. And then a light gets turned
on. Well, you still going to walk the way you was walking
in that dark room? You still going to do this? No,
you don't need to do that now. You can see. I can just walk. Because I can see. And people deceived talk about
being in the light. Isn't that what John tells them
over there in 1 John 1? He said, God is light and in
Him is no darkness at all. He's pure light. There's no darkness
in Him. If you say, I know Him, and you
continue to walk in darkness, you're a liar. Your life. You can't have the light turned
on in your heart. Christ is the light. If God sends
that light into your heart, it reveals everything. You're not
going to trust in that old flesh anymore because you see it for
what it is. You're going to trust in Him because you see Him for
who He is. And you're going to look to Him. You ain't going to look to you,
and you ain't going to look to the world. You can see the world. The world's deceit. What's the
first thing God did in creation? He said, let there be light.
Huh? What was the first thing they
saw when the light came? The earth was without form and
void. There's nothing there. It's just
a big black hole. That's all it is. Until the Spirit
of God moved on the water. Then came creation. We're new
creatures in Christ. He's given us light. We walk
in the light. We walk in that knowledge of
Christ. We walk in His grace and His
mercy and His love. We don't keep on walking like
we did out there in idolatry. We henceforth walk not as other
Gentiles walk. How do they walk? They walk in
the vanity of their minds. And those who have the truth
in Christ cannot continue on in that old superstition. Wisdom
comes, we don't go back to ignorance. And believers walk by faith.
They walk in the light as He is the light. And therefore they have fellowship
one with another. Don't have fellowship with anybody
else, but they have fellowship with one another. How do they walk? They walk in
gratitude. They're thankful. Thankful. God chose them. He called them.
He made provision for them. He taught them. He gave them
His Son. He chose preachers and He arranged His providence for
them to hear. They know it and they're thankful
for it. We walk in gratitude and believers walk in love. They
love God. I don't love him like I ought
to, but I love him. I tell you, the first time I
heard a man tell me who God was, I didn't like that God. That God he was telling me about
is absolutely sovereign. He does everything according
to his own will. He doesn't consider me. He sits
on the circle of the earth and all the inhabitants thereof are
grasshoppers. The island's just a, Dropping
the bucket. And for you young ones that don't
know what that is, we used to draw water in a well, and you'd
get it up there, and you'd get you a drink, or you'd pour that
water out. Well, there's a couple more drops
in the bucket. You just throw the bucket back
in. That's what the world is to him, dropping the bucket.
Small dust of the balance, those scales you see where they used
to weigh things in the scales and there's a little bit of dust
on there. They don't even bother to wipe it off. It's not gonna affect
the weight. That's the world to him, the small dust of the
balance. He God. Boy, I love that God
now because I see that sovereignty engaged in his son, accomplishing
my redemption. securing my redemption, sitting
at the right hand of God, ruling over all things, making sure
that my redemption is gonna come to pass. I tell you, you hoping
some little manby-pamby God, he can't do anything. I feel
sorry for you. That's not the God of the Bible,
the God of the Bible's sovereign. And when he shows you that sovereignty
in the person of his son, you get that wisdom of who God is,
this eternal God, and all the things that he's done in Christ
to secure your salvation. It's a whole different picture.
Now you love that God. Everybody else despises him,
wants to spit on him. My God wouldn't do like that. We love God, and we love God
our Savior. Peter said we hadn't seen Him,
but we love Him. We love Him. And believing, he
said, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. And we walk
in righteousness, perfect righteousness. You remember Romans chapter seven
at the end, Paul threw his hands up and he just couldn't stand
it anymore. He said, oh, wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank
God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now listen to his next statement.
So then, with the mind, I serve the law of Christ. What mind? The mind of Christ. That law
is perfectly honored, exalted, kept, and satisfied in Christ. The only thing I can do if I
try to keep that law is mess it up. I walk in his righteousness by
faith. Enoch walked with God, didn't
he? He walked with God and he left
his testimony. He left his testimony behind.
But without faith, he said, it's impossible to please God. And
it pleased him. How'd he please him? By faith.
Well, how'd he do that? Faith in his righteousness and
his shed blood. Paul said, my kinfolk, the Jews,
they got a zeal of God, but it's not according to knowledge, for
they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about
to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of Christ, because Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness. Now listen, to everyone that
believeth. Believers walk in the righteousness
of God and faith walks in the assurance of a perfect justification. Justified in Christ. God has put away all the sins
of his elect. And here's the question. Was his death sufficient? Is
there something more needed? to justify a man to put away
man's sins? Is there something more needed
than the death of Christ? Was his blood enough? Is something
else required? My friend, it's not faith in
your faith and it's not confidence in your confidence, it's faith
in his blood, faith in Christ, faith in him. Scripture said,
by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having
obtained eternal redemption for us. It's in his hand and it's
secured in his hand at the right hand of God. Once in the end of the world
has he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
He put it away. He said, I come to accomplish
the redemptive will of God by the which will we're sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And so then he tells us over
in Romans 8, he said, now, who shall lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? He justified. Who justified it?
God did. Now, you gonna bring a charge
up? I don't think so. I don't think so. Not only did God justify him,
but it says Christ died for him. Yea, rather he's risen again
who's even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession
for us. Believers walk in the full assurance
of a complete and full justification and their confidence is in Christ,
it's not in themselves. So, henceforth, walk not as other
Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. It's a vain walk
to walk believing you're in control of your life. You're not. You're
not. He'll prove it to you. It's coming. He's going to prove it to you.
You're not in control of anything. You can't get rid of a cold. You're not in control. He's in
control. Scripture said believers are
kept by the power of God through faith. Whose power? God's power. They walk in a full assurance
that He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. That all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to His person. And it's a vain walk to walk
believing that you can please God by your works. You can't. I'll tell you whose works he
pleased with. Christ. He pleased with that. He said they wanted to build
monuments up there. And these were notable men. They
were all prophets. They wanted to build a monument
up there to Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration. And Elijah
built a monument. Boy, God took that out of the
way. And then he spoke. And he said, this is my beloved
son in whom I'm well pleased. You hear him. Oh, is he pleased
with Christ? Is he pleased with me? If I'm
any son, he is. But boy, outside of his son,
the wrath of God abideth on you. And it's a vain walk to conjure
up an image of God in any other form than the express image manifested
in His Son. He's the brightness of the Father's
glory and express image. He's the express image of the
Father. You see what Paul's saying here?
You've not so learned Christ if you're still walking in the
vanity of your mind. We walk in faith, and that faith
is in Christ. And that's what he tells us over
and over. You have not so learned Christ. If so be you been taught
by Christ as the truth is in Christ. You see how he just keeps
talking about in Christ, in Christ, in Christ? That's where it all
is, it's in Christ. I'm not trying to get folks to
join the church or folks to make some kind of commitment. I'm
trying to point men to Christ. That's where salvation is. That's
where God can be found. That's where God can be learned
and understood in Christ. All these mysteries brought to
light in Christ. So what am I gonna do, try to
reform humanity? No. No, I'm not going to waste
my time. I'm going to point him to Christ.
I'm going to point him to Christ. He's the Reformation. He's the
Reformation. And the weirdest thing will happen. When you look to Christ, all
the rest of your life, you're going to want to be just like
Him. You're going to want to be just
like Him. You're going to strive to be like Him. You want to love
like He loved and give like He gave. Talk like He talked. Do like he did. I want to be
like Christ. God gave these men four different
kinds. Two to establish the word of
God and two to preach it. Two to preach it. Don't throw
that away. Don't chuck that aside. And you
think what a privilege it is. Or God, if these things I'm telling
you are so, and they are, I can show you in the Word of God.
And I've quoted a good many of the verses to you this morning,
but I can show you in the Word of God where these things are
so. And the purpose of these gifts
is to point you to Christ. And God'll do the rest. He'll
do the rest, He'll do it all. You'll do it all. He'll give
you the understanding. He'll create you a new, my soul,
things that you never thought possible to understand, you'll
understand. But you won't understand anything
apart from Christ. May the Lord bless you. Thank
you.