I'm going to read the first seven
verses in Ephesians 1, and then we'll look at one verse, actually
one phrase that thoroughly excited me. We'll do that. But let's look at these first
seven verses in Ephesians 1, chapter 1, verse 1. Paul, an
apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints which
are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, Grace be to
you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. according as he, that is God, hath chosen us in him,
that is Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy 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 of the glory of
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, in
whom We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins according to the riches of His grace." The riches of
His grace. Well, just introductory thoughts,
just a few thoughts on the first six verses. So look back with
me at them. Paul was an apostle. of Jesus
Christ by the will of God. And whether it's an apostle or
someone who was called, quickened, and saved, it is only by and
through the will of God. Man has nothing to say in the
matter. Verse 2, before we can have peace, that's why it's ordered
in every salutation, basically in the New Testament, it's this
way. It's not peace, then grace. You've
got to have grace before you can know anything about peace.
You've got to have grace because we are at war with God in sin. Born in sin, we are at war. But
once grace is shown unto us, we have peace from God the Father
and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father,
verse 3, of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places. People talk today, nominal Christians,
fundamentalists, Catholics, it doesn't matter. They all talk
about physical, earthly blessings. Well, the most important thing
that we can have is what it says here, has blessed us with all
spiritual blessings. Because the spiritual blessings
are going to last. This world is temporal, and it's
going to burn up. According as God he says he God
hath chosen us his elect in Christ before the foundation of the
world before the world ever was That we should be holy without
blame before him in love. So somebody says I'm chosen I'm
called and then they live like they want to live or they live
like Obnoxiously or to the lust of the flesh. That's not how
we're to live He who called us is holy. We are to be holy ourselves
But this transaction of salvation, redemption, took place before
this world was ever created. Verse 5, it sounds like to me
that we are predestinated to be adopted children. I know a
lot of people don't like that word, but it's in the Bible.
And a believer, you may not fully understand it, but it's always
a good thing. Look at it. Having predestinated
us, I think us would be excited.
Unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. Predestination,
election, justification, righteousness is all according to the good
pleasure of God's will. There's His will again. Verse
6, that we should be to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein
He has made us, not we made ourselves, He made us accepted in the Beloved,
and that Beloved is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we're
to live. I hear people say, when they're
20s, 30s, and 40 years old, I don't know what I'm supposed to be
when I grow up. Well, you're supposed to be to the praise
of the glory of His grace, if you know Him. But this verse
7 is the one I want to look at. In who? In Christ. We have redemption. Through His blood, without the
shedding of blood, there is no remission. The forgiveness of
sins according to the riches of His grace. That little phrase
stuck in the middle of this verse, the forgiveness of sins. This is a wonderful phrase. Forgiveness. If you've experienced
forgiveness from somebody who was angry at you, be it a boss,
your spouse, And there's wonderful reconciliation. It's just wonderful. We're talking about sinners in
the hands of an angry God. We're talking about a God whose
commands are not thwarted, but ignored. We all went our own
way. The lust of the flesh and the
pride of life. So this word, this phrase, the forgiveness
of sins, it's just marvelous. Just dwell on that. Forgiveness. Now we're going to look at three
things this morning. First, how this word sounds in the ears
of guilty, vile, bankrupt sinners. Now if you're not a bankrupt
sinner, if you don't think you're that bad, if you think you're
as good as your sister or your brother or your neighbor or your
friends, you're comparing yourself with other people. You're not
comparing yourself to the true, to God. But if you're a sinner,
If you're, as Maurice used to say, a dead dog sinner, this
sounds, the forgiveness of sins, it sounds wonderful and we never
really get over it. Secondly, I want to look at what
we are forgiven from what, and thirdly, forgiven to what? From
what and to what? Firstly, the sweet sound or declaration
of sins forgiven. Now this word, forgiveness, in
this form, forgiveness, is used only seven times. I was surprised
by that. Only seven times in the scripture.
Once in the Old Testament, just one time, and six in the New
Testament. It means in the Hebrew, pardon. Forgiveness of sins,
pardon. It means in the Greek, freedom,
I like that word, after going through Galatians. and deliverance. Now, the word forgive, forgave,
all these, there's a lot of those usages. Okay, the word, just
the forgiveness, it's only used seven times, but every other
place where the root word and its variations are used, it still
means the same thing. Pardon, freedom, and deliverance,
it still means the same thing. But here we, and I asked myself
when I was getting ready to prepare this, have I heard the sweet
and most unique word forgiveness from God? Now, we forgive one
another and that's important, but forgiven by God, that's the
key. Oh, such harmony and precious
melody to the dying condemned sinner's ears. Forgiveness. Just the word. Spurgeon had something on this,
I think, last week. Just the word. He said, you get
like a little kid. You get all excited again. Forgiveness. What harmony and what melody
that word brings to our ears. You think back to Leviticus 25,
you don't have to turn there, about that enslaved Israelite.
He was living captured all because of his debts. His land taken away, his house
taken away, sometimes kids. And then in the 49th or 50th
year, the year of Jubilee, he may be out in the field. He may
be working for somebody else because he's got debts to pay,
couldn't pay them. And then in that year, That blessed year
of Jubilee arrives. The trumpet sounds. He's holing. Drops that hole
and walks away free. Restored of all everything he
lost. Look at it. Look at it in Leviticus
25 sometimes. All his debt gone. And he walks away from those
who held him absolutely free. Who can estimate the amazing
effect this sound of that trumpet, as does the gospel sound to each
chosen vile sinner, has upon all who knew that they were indebted,
all who were sin sick and heavy laden. You are in debt every
day, year one, year two, year three. You may not even have
made it to the year of Jubilee, but if you made it, I can imagine
you just sitting there marking those days. It's coming, it's
coming, it's coming. And then when you heard that,
and that's exactly what the gospel is to those who have a need. It's the gospel of the grace
of God that pronounces forgiveness. The gospel goes forth, it hits
its mark every time. It's always successful to those
He has chosen, called, and as our text said in Ephesians, who
are predestinated unto adoption, chosen from before the foundation
of the world. Christ paid our debt. We believe Him to be ever
true. We've heard that melodious trumpet,
and we are set free. We are set free. Or another example,
can you imagine an orphan? Now that passage that Matt read,
he said if you had a margin, I don't know if you noticed that,
he will not leave us comfortless. You know what that word is, comfortless?
It's orphan. He will not leave us orphan.
Can you imagine the orphan in the orphanage, his elation when
he heard those words, you're adopted now. you're adopted. Or how about even Barabbas, released
back into society, Mark 15, John 18, Luke 23, and Matthew 27.
Christ sets the captives free is what he does as he makes us
unto our God kings and priests. Oh, bless his holy name. We now
have a righteousness that heaven will allow. We now have the Redeemer
which heaven itself appointed, for even the forgiveness of sins. In whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Now, the second point,
what are we forgiven from? What are we forgiven from? What
are we pardoned from? What is our freedom from? Well,
first of all, we're free from sin. When he sets us free, he sets
us free from sin. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Now if we continue to sin, we
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. We
confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us. So he
has freed us from the penalty. and the end result of sin. His
blood, says 1 John 1, 7, cleanses us from all sin. There's not
one sin that He has not forgiven us. There's not one sin that
He has left, has been uncovered. He's covered them all. Secondly,
we are forgiven our pardon from guilt. This is, religion is really
good about this. And I have to be careful. Every
grace preacher, every person has to be careful that we don't
Inadvertently bring our people under guilt for what we think
needs to be done That's why Paul and I it's over and over again.
I've determined not to know anything among you say Christ and him
crucified but Christ Forgives us from sin. He forgives us from
guilt Hebrews 914 says that but if we have truly believed upon
Christ the Lord we are free from guilt Oh precious conscience
freedom and your conscience keeps bothering you, nobody can say
anything to relieve it. You can convince yourself, because
we're so deceitful, we deceive ourselves. We don't even know
our own heart. We can kind of cover it over. But if the Lord
is smiting our hearts, our conscience, according to Galatians, our conscience
is free. Our conscience, the conscience
keeps on wanting to go back to the law. It keeps going, okay,
here's the law, now I'm doing this, I'm not, it's not, no.
He has freed us from guilt. We have a clear conscience. Thirdly,
we have freedom from the law. For we are not under the law,
says Paul, but under grace. Romans 6 verse 14. Fourthly,
we're free from eternal death. Death, where is your sting? Turn
with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I like this. 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. We're free from eternal death. 1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse
55, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
I think we're free from both of those, aren't we? free from
sin, free from the law, but thanks be to God which gives us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what the law
does. This is what sin does. But we are forgiven. We are pardoned. We're free from this. Thanks
be to God. He gives us the victory of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast,
unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as
much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Sixly, we're free from judgment. We're free from judgment. And
you don't have to turn here, but Romans 5, verse 16, God judged
our sins upon Christ. Therefore, we will not be judged. We will not be judged. Will we
stand before Him? Yes. We're not going to say anything. Christ is going to say, nope. He's mine. She's mine. She's
mine, he's mine. So we're free from eternal judgment.
And this one I just put in here because I guess my past, our
past, some of our past. We are forgiven, we have freedom
from Christless, man-made religion. Okay? Christless, man-made religion. Don't go back there. Don't go back there. The gospel
wasn't preached. The only time Paul went back
there is he says, and I speak as a fool. That's what he said.
And the Lord can bring these things up for teaching times,
but we go way back and we go back way too often. If the gospel
wasn't preached, I don't care how sincere they were. I don't
care how many friends you made. They're the enemies of Christ.
Now, should you be mean to them? Nasty to them? No, because they
may come to hear the truth through you. We would never have any
excuse to treat anybody illy. Even if they, we turn the other
cheek, smack it, give them this one. I know we don't do that,
it's hard to do. We have no excuse to be mean.
But I'm telling you, if you understand the gospel, Linda and I were
talking about a couple, and they wanted to be a part of us, and
they wanted to do this, and they wanted to do that. Came back in this area. When they would come back, they'd
always come to church here, you know, once or twice a year. Went with his parents to the
Lutheran church. Why? What a smack. What a slap in the face of God
to say, I believe the gospel, and then go back under that nonsense. And we also heard another gentleman
say, well, I was under it before. He's talking about the law. He
says, well, I was under it before. I can be under it again. Maybe
you can. Maybe you're strong enough. But
Christ, in Galatians 5, stand ye therefore in the liberty Christ
has made us free. Stand fast in the liberty with
Christ wherewith He made you free. I'm not going to do it.
He's freed me from that. He's forgiven me from going back.
And that's what we've been looking at in Hebrews, the whole thing.
They're trying to go back and Paul says, no, no, no. You're
falling from grace. It's what he used in Galatians
and he uses that kind of similar phrase in Hebrews 12. No, a believer
can't fall from grace. We need not ever again fall under
Satan's false gospels or wolves in sheep's clothing. We follow
Christ and He has promised protection and forgiveness. Now thirdly, lastly, not only
are we saved from these things, but we are saved, are pardoned,
or we have freedom to do certain things. And one of them is worship
God. We don't worship God like that
woman at the well. Our fathers say you've got to
go to this place or that place. You've got to go to the supposed
holy land and touch the wall. No. No. We don't have to do that. We have freedom. to worship God
in spirit and in truth, and we do it correctly, not by the law. We don't go by tradition or vain
ceremony, but through blood, by sacrifice, and that is always
by and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, we are made acceptable
to God, like that in the Old Testament when they would burn
that incense altar, and this fragrance would go up to heaven.
It was a sweet-smelling savor. Secondly, we're free. We have
freedom to serve God acceptably. He accepts our gifts and service
as done by our mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. He has made
intercession for us. We're forgiven. We have freedom. We've been pardoned to serve
Him and also to each other in love. That's how God's service
is done, because we're forgiven. In everything God sees us, He
sees the blood. We're covered in the blood. And
so our services, our gifts, are acceptable to God. Thirdly, we
have freedom to reverence our God. We didn't reverence Him
before. We may have had a slavish fear, but that's not service.
Turn to Psalms 130. This is the only place in the
Old Testament where this word is used, this proper word here.
Psalms 130 and verse 4. But there is forgiveness with
thee that you may be feared, or you may be reverenced. Psalms
130 verse 4. We have freedom to reverence
our God. Fourthly, we have freedom to
love our God. This is true love, that He loved
us first, And then we were allowed to love God honorably and also
to love one another. And that's what he says, what
he's talking about in John 13, about loving one another, the
world will know that you're my disciples. There's a lot of things. And doctrine's important. Teaching's
important. But the love of God in Christ,
which is probably an area that we're really weak in, It shows
the world, it shows others that we're of God. It shows our allegiance and our
discipleship to God. So we have a freedom to worship,
which we didn't before. We worshiped ourselves. We have
a freedom to serve God, a freedom to reverence God, a freedom to
love God, and lastly, we are free to have been pardoned to
obey God in word and deed and in practice. We are freedom to
obey God. 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3 verse 18, my little children
let us not love in word neither in tongue but in deed and in
truth. This is what we are free to do.
This is what the blood of Christ does. It sets us free. It sets us about service. It
sets us about loving. It sets us about proper worship. Before God's forgiveness came
to us, we obeyed the lust of the flesh. We were pleasing self
and were all about self. But now, by the free grace of
God in Christ Jesus, we willfully obey and submit to God. We are now more concerned with
the things of others. And I'm not talking about being
nosy or snoopy. But if I see someone, if we see
someone have need and we don't respond as far as doing good,
but doing good especially to those in the household of faith,
he says, how does the love of God dwell in you? Just cast it aside. We can get busy, and we can justify,
and we do. We're often more concerned with
ourselves, but being, understanding forgiving, and understanding
forgiveness, and understanding what we were, and where we've
been, and where we've come, the pit that we've been dug from,
we're now more concerned with the things of others than ourselves.
We look for ways to serve others, to serve Christ in this vastly
Christless, self-serving world. That's, I mean, if you got a
phone, everybody's got a phone, and if you look at any news,
if you look at anything that's going on, it's self. I was reading
now, Bruce Crafter or something, he said something about, I'm
gonna take a selfie, it's self, it's this, it's that, it's, you
know, it's selfie, that's a good name for it, because that's what
everybody's about. It's just, you look at that and
you just, But they haven't experienced
the forgiveness of God. They haven't understood when
the sweet message of the harmonious gospel comes their way. They
said, not me, I'm not that bad. I've done this and I've done
that. Haven't we done a lot? We were looking at the other
day. Haven't we done many wonderful works in your name? Depart from
me. When did we feed you? When did
we clothe you? When did we visit you in prisons?
When did we do this? And he said, when you did it
for the least of one of these children, you've done it unto me. So it
looks like to me that this forgiveness, it sparks within us, again, not
being nosy, but maybe contacting one another once in a while.
Is he doing all right? Do you need any help? Oh, I may not be able to help
you, but I know somebody who just, This is what it's about. This is a family. Yes, it's a
dysfunctional family. I know that. You're led by a
very dysfunctional pastor who covets your prayers. Because
I'm convinced that it's through the foolishness of preaching
that He saves them. It's the foolishness of you speaking. Preaching is just out speaking.
It doesn't have to come from behind His pulpit. I've said
this a lot. If you understand the Gospel, You have a responsibility
to go forth into all the world and tell them the truth. Like
I say, if you don't know, if you're like us, we're slow of
speech and don't know what to say, invite them. Hand them a
card. But we're a family. We are a
family. With needs and wants and personality
differences, but that's okay if we've been forgiven. We can
worship God together. We can serve God together. We
can reverence God and love God and obey God and obey and serve
and love one another because that's what forgiveness does. That's what forgiveness does.
May we praise God for His eternal forgiveness to the likes of us. sinners simply say by grace. Nathan, would you close this? And Father, this is what we come
to hear and it may sound selfish to say something like that, but
your grace