It's important to watch words
and even small, seemingly insignificant statements in the Bible, because
nothing is in here for no reason. Everything is in here for a reason
and everything has a meaning and a purpose. So we begin in
verse one, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Notice he doesn't say, I chose
this as a profession. I felt like I could get rich
being a preacher. That's not what he said. He tells
us right at the beginning why it is that he is what he is,
preacher of the gospel. He said, it's by the will of
God. It wasn't my idea, it was his. To the saints, which are at Ephesus, And to the faithful in Christ
Jesus, not faithful to Christ Jesus, be hard for any of us
to claim that in perfection, wouldn't it? But faithful in
Christ Jesus. And that we are, that we are. 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 hath 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 under
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 had made us accepted in the blood." Notice
it's not acceptable, but accepted. And we'll stop reading with those
Six verses. And the title of our message
would be the blessing of believing the blessing of believing. I've said this many times before.
Not all of you have heard me say this, but I want to say it
again. You do not believe God by effort. Did you know that? Philippians
chapter one, Paul said it is given us. to believe. It's a blessing, the blessing
of believing. It's not by effort. You can do
your best to believe something you don't believe, and you'll
wind up saying, I'd like to believe it, I just can't make myself
believe it. But if you can believe God, it's not your doing. It is given us to believe. So
we're talking about the blessing of believing. Now the true measure
of blessing is not in how much one has in
this world or how much one knows or how much one can do, but rather
the true measure of blessing is how much one believes God. It's not meant for every believer
to do something great in the eyes of men. It's not meant for every believer
to be a preacher. I know there's little schools
and there's little cliques that wants to make every young man
a preacher and every woman a preacher's wife or a missionary's wife.
No, no. God does his work in every area
of life, plant workers, landscapers, ditch diggers, bankers, lawyers. Well, I don't know about so many
of them, but anyway, God gets into all this, huh? He does. Simply believing God,
watching him work is the greatest of all. Believing he has done
and will do according to his own good pleasure. The blessings
of believing. Some of the most blessed people
who've ever lived, and some living now, are people who have little,
know little, and can do little, but yet they firmly believe God. That is blessing above every
other blessing. It really is. It really is. Now,
the question this morning, do you really believe God? Has God ever done you wrong? Will God do you wrong? Does what people think of you
reflect what God thinks of you? Is it possible that the majority
might be wrong about God? Is it possible that the majority
might be wrong about you? Is my sickness and my sorrow
and my afflictions in life a sign of God's displeasure? All these
are big questions. And I'm telling you, it is only
God given faith by which we believe God that can stabilize our minds
and hearts in the face of all these questions. Apart from believing
God, this world will drive you crazy. Now I'm telling you. He's
our hope this morning. And you're not here by accident
this morning. None of us know what tomorrow holds. And I'm not trying to pitch any
scary stuff out, but God only knows where any one of us could
be tomorrow in relation to sickness, death, hospital, Job, whatever,
but God knows, God knows. So we're emphasizing this thing
this morning of believing him. The believer's greatest blessing
in this world is believing God. We read here in verse three,
blessed be the God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us. with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. Paul says, God is the one that's
to be credited and praised. Blessed be God. It is he that has brought me
into this life of believing him. Now the religious world today
is puzzled. as to why any intelligent person
would not believe and embrace the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ourselves say, Oh, why
don't they just, why can't they just see? Oh, why can't they
just see they need the Lord? Why don't people just turn to
the Lord? But see, if we do not consent
and if we do not understand that there was something that happened
to man in the fall when sin entered. And what that was, all the faculties, man's being,
mind, heart, will, affections, everything was affected. And
it resulted in man being incapable of coming to God on his own. Now people can talk you into
going to church and they can talk you into singing and reading
your Bible. They might talk you into preaching.
I don't know, but nobody can talk you into
coming to the Lord. He has to do that. He has to
do that. So three things sin has done
to Adam's race. Sin has darkened the mind with
respect to spiritual things. And that's what we just said.
First Corinthians two 14, the natural man that is the nitty
gritty. You receive it, not the things
of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto
him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually
discerned. He has no interest, has no desire. The natural man
don't. He'd rather go fishing. He'd
rather go hunting. He'd rather do anything than think about
God. Second Corinthians four, four,
the God of this world. Well, who is that? There's millions
of them. Satan being the chief, the God
of this world hath blinded the minds of them, which believe
not. Ephesians 4.18, having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God that is dead
to the life of God through the ignorance that is in them. So
sin has darkened the minds with respect to spiritual things.
Second, sin has corrupted man's affections. John 3.19, and this
is the condemnation that light is coming to the world. Who was
that light? The Lord Jesus Christ. And men loved darkness rather
than light. Why? Because their deeds were
evil. The affections because of sin
are corrupted. Jeremiah 17 9, the heart is deceitful
above all things. and desperately wicked who can
know it. You hear people say, well, if
I know my heart, I want to do this. I wanted that. No, no,
no. This book said that that heart of yours is deceitful above
all things. It'll tell you that you're something
better than what you are. It'll tell you, you can do what
you can't do. It's deceitful above all things,
and not just slightly unclean, but desperately wicked. That's
what it said. Whose heart is he talking about?
He's talking about this natural heart of every one of us. Deceitful
above all things. Who can know it? Only God knows
it. And then the Lord Jesus said, this really, this really nails
it in Mark 7, 21, for from within. You say, well, if it hadn't been
for him or her, I'd be all right. No, no. The Lord Jesus didn't
point out yonder. He pointed in here. For from
within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from
within and defile the man. Job 15, 16, man drinketh iniquity
like water. Sin has corrupted our affections. All that's a roundabout way of
saying we like it. Somebody said, oh, bless God,
I haven't had any trouble with sin since I've been saved. Well,
I never had any trouble with it before I was saved. All my
trouble started when the Lord moved in. See, that's the difference. And the third thing sin has done,
it has placed man's will in bondage. John 5, 40, you will not. Come unto me, Christ said this,
that you might have life. You just will not. The will of
man is bound by sin. John 5, 44, he said, how can
you believe which receive honor one of another and seek not the
honor that cometh from God only? Job 14.4, who can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean, not one. Jeremiah 13.23, can the Ethiopian
change his skin? No, he can't do it. Or the leopard,
his spots, can't do it. He said, if that can happen,
then may ye also do good which are accustomed to do evil. It
ain't happening. It's just not in you. So this morning, believing God
and believing that Christ has satisfied God on our behalf is
the greatest blessing you can have. It's a gift of God to you
to believe. All this business about, I'm
going to turn over a new leaf. I'm going to try to do better.
I'm going to hope my good will outweigh my bad. Boy, when the
time comes, I just hope I made the grade. You hadn't made the
grade. You're not going to make the grade. We are accepted in
Christ. In Christ. Oh, my soul. In spite of your
belief in him, your interest in him, your delight in worshiping
him and your presence here today, still there is in us that would disbelieve, that would
accuse God of turning away from us or forsaking us at some point
in our miserable efforts to be a Christian. But you see, we
forget that He knew us through and through before we
were ever born. He saw the end of us before the
beginning of us. And the reason He saw the end
of us is because He decreed the end of us. And He's promised,
I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. You hear that quoted a
lot, but we don't believe it a lot. You say, oh, I believe it. Well,
so do I. But there is a depraved nature
in here that can't believe it. And there is a devil that reminds
me every day with every negative thing that happens, I guess God's
left you. And we reply, yeah, it seems
like he has. But to believe, to be blessed
to believe, I will never, Christ said, Not under any circumstances
leave thee, nor forsake thee. Well, who are
you going to believe? Isaiah 49, 15, can a woman forget
her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son
of her womb? Now that is the most unnatural
thing that a mother forsake her baby. And yet we're living in
a time we're so near the judgment of God. We're so near the society
in Noah's day before the flood. It's not an uncommon thing. Have
babies, kill them before they're born, abandon them after they're
born. That's where we are today. There's
no shame in anything. God says it don't change him.
A woman may forget her second child, yet will not I forget
thee. God's not like us. Aren't you
glad of that? You better be glad of that. Can
you really believe that God started with you and he's going to quit
somewhere along the way? Oh, no. Oh, no. He said he wouldn't. He said he wouldn't. Now, here's
what he will do. He'll come with the correction rod. He'll take
the belt off to you. Like any caring father does.
But it's not because he's forsaken you. It's because he won't forsake
you. He will not. So all the blessing
of believing. Now I want to refer to three
beautiful things and I've got to hurry along in these verses
that we've read in Ephesians 1. The first one is this. Whose
idea was it that I'd be a believer? We've already mentioned that.
Instead of me being an unbelieving, blaspheming, cussing, low-downer-than-hell
individual disgraced to society. Some have been there. That's
where we'd all be, but for the grace of God. There was a time
we were all headed in that direction. Well, what made the difference?
What made the difference? When I hear somebody say, I got
my life straightened out, I run the other way. And when I hear somebody say,
God straightened my life out, I say, tell me more. That's how
it happened. That's how it is. That's how
it works. And here's the difference in
verse four. Look at the scripture plainly. According. That's a
connecting word. He's about to describe the blessings
of verse three. And here's the first one. According
as he God, the father. Have chosen us. Those who believe
in him, in Christ Jesus. When did he do this before? The foundation of the world. Now, that statement says that
you have nothing to do with what God thinks of you. You say, oh,
I thought I did. No, anything you could do would
turn God off, not on. It's what his son did that turns
him on. Chosen in him in Christ before
the foundation of the world. Now people don't like that. And
they'll tell you, we'll not hear of a God that we can't influence
one way or another. Well, like it or not, this verse
says God's mind was made up before he ever created the world, like
it or not. Somebody says, well, I'm worried
that I'm not one of the chosen. Well, if you're not, you won't
worry much about it. You'll put it out of your mind,
go on with your hellish living with no real fear of God in your
heart ever until you plunge into eternity without God. You don't
have to worry too much about that. But how precious this is
to those who cannot put God out of our mind. We long to be in
his presence. That's what we're doing here
today. We long to hear more about him. That's why we're here today. And we know this desire is not
of our own making. It's God doing. And this verse
tells us where it came from. We were chosen of God in Christ
before the foundation of the world. What's going on here this
morning is older than time. In the mind and purpose of God,
he had a family of people. Loving him, walking with him,
worshiping him before he ever hung out the stars. So it's clear. Oh my. And this is what God's people
love. We use that word love so loosely. I love a 53 Chevrolet
pickup. There's one sitting out here
on the side of 64 West and my heart skips a beat every time
I drive by it. But that's only 63 years old.
Pretty new, ain't it? I love a 57 Chevy. That was
my first car. But that started only 59 years
ago. That's nothing much, is it? But you see, what's working
in my heart this morning is older than time. It's an eternal something. It's a little chunk of eternity
that knows nothing of sin's curse and sin's shame and sin's sorrow. And it's a new creation in me
that delights in God, chosen of God in Christ. I love it. Don't you? People
said to me, well, I believe everybody has a chance to be saved. Well,
I don't believe anybody has a chance to be saved. Salvation is not
by chance. God has to do it deliberately.
And he does. It's by grace, it's his doing,
not ours. So chosen, chosen for what? Well, I could go on and on about
this chosen business. I mean, if I said, won't you
please accept Jesus? Well, I didn't know he needed
your acceptance. You need his acceptance. We got
everything backwards. Chosen for what? Here's the second
thing, verse five. Having predestinated us under
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will. God made the decision. before we got here, before he made the world, that
he'd have children. And how many he'd have. And who
they'd be. And he went ahead and named them. Chapter 3, verse 15, of whom
the whole family in heaven and earth is named. named after Christ. Now this word here in verse five,
predestinated, having predestinated us. Well, you know what a destination
is. A destination is the place you're
headed toward and going to arrive at. It's a destination. And this prefix pre, P-R-E, means
before, before the destination, before you arrive. It means ahead
of time, beforehand. So God has beforehand predetermined
the destination of those whom he's chosen. What is it? What
is that destination? It's unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself. God chose that you'd be his child. Now, wait a minute. Is this saying
that God chose who his children would be? individually and that
he chose them in Christ before he made the world, that's exactly
what it's saying. And that blessed truth of this
Bible, which is all through this Bible, is the very reason we've
still got plenty of empty seats this morning. People don't want
to hear this. We won't hear about a God that
we can't manipulate and that we can't make happy by what we
do. No, God is happy with his son. He said over and over, this
is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And if he's ever
pleased with you, it's in his son that he's pleased with you.
God couldn't look at you apart from his son without slapping
you into hell instantly. No, there's nothing in you deserves
anything better, but in Christ is where it's at. Oh my. And here's why, according to
the good pleasure of his will, God didn't just call it because
he wants to. And this blessed truth, so clear
in God's word, his elect children love it. It's about his choice
of us. But there are hundreds of cocky
religionists in our area. call themselves preachers, screaming
about everything under the sun. And this blessed truth we're
reading God's word about absolutely infuriates them. They hate it.
They're indoctrinated in their little Bible colleges, so-called,
to never mention predestination, election. And if they do, they're
instructed how to explain it away. And the mindset of the whole
business is to emphasize how much God needs us rather than
how much we need him. Emphasize what we must do for
him rather than what he's done for us. And make the sad plea that the
survival of his kingdom is in our hands. Whether or not God's
a failure depends on us. How blasphemous. He's at our
mercy rather than we at his. Oh no. Oh no. Turn on your religious
radio in your listening area, and that's about all you'll hear.
It's about all you'll hear. I'm being mean this morning,
aren't I? One of the most popular names in our area, and I'm not
going to call the name, Western North Carolina, Upper South Carolina.
I could call bushels of them. This is one of the main ones.
I heard him make this statement a few days ago. Calvinists have
taken God's national election of Israel and mistakenly applied
it to individual election. Well, he's the one that's mistaken.
Paul is writing to a primarily Gentile church at Ephesus. And he's talking about these
blessings given to believers by God's election Individually,
if you please, not nationally. Oh, no. So first we're chosen in Christ
from eternity. Verse four. Second, we're predestinated
to the adoption of children, God's children, verse five. And
then the third thing, and I'll be through in just a moment,
verse six, we learn how God brings it to pass, to the praise of
the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us acceptable, no,
accepted in the beloved. Now the beloved is Christ, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we didn't make ourselves
accepted, he hath made us accepted in Christ the beloved. You're either accepted with God
in him. Or you're damned forever. You say
that's hard. That's so. When I say Christ is your only
hope. I mean Christ is your only hope.
He's my only hope. And if you're here every Sunday
for 30 years, Christ is your only hope. Or if you stumble in once a month
or once or twice a year, Christ is your only hope. He's anybody's
only hope. How blessed it is to believe
this. But do you really believe it? And here's how you know. This is how you certainly know.
Believing God is not something you take a hold of. Believing God is something to
take a hold of you. If you've been blessed with God-given
faith, it's changed your life. If religion is just some kind
of little sideline with you, That's all right when you got
time or when you feel like it, then you're not doing anything
but playing religion. And that won't do when you're
dying. Oh, no. It won't even do to face society
anymore. I'm telling you folks, this thing's
coming down to the wire and we're silent about it. We
need to, we need to be thinking about these things. We need to
be serious about these things. Lesbian couples adopting baby
boys. Queer couples adopting baby girls. It's happened all around us. Why do they do that? That's what
they want. Killing, drinking, doping. You better find out. What side
you're on and get there and stay there. Paul said in Philippians three,
I took my watch off and that's a good thing. Paul said in Philippians three, he said, I persecuted the church.
This was before the Lord changed his heart. I persecuted the church.
And that word persecuted means that I pressed. I gave it my
all with all that's in me. I intended to stamp out the preaching
of Jesus Christ. I persecuted the church. But then when he went on down
there and told about the Lord changing his heart, he says,
here's what I do now. I press. toward the mark of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And that word press that
I'm doing now was the same Greek word as the persecuted back there,
the pressure. What he's saying was, I gave
my all against this business. And now that Christ has changed
my life, I'm giving my all for it. I press toward the mark. I want to be all that God wants
me to be. We're in a time when hell's not
letting up, buddy. And they're not going to let
up till the Lord comes. And I want to testify this morning
to you. I want to be standing on the
Lord's side when he comes. Don't you? I sure do. Thank God for the blessing of
believing. Christ said, You've not chosen
me. I've chosen you. You didn't decide to be my child.
I predestinated you that I would adopt you as my child by Jesus
Christ to myself. And you didn't make yourself
presentable and acceptable. You were accepted in the blood.
In my son, we're blessed to believe we're blessed in believing. We're
blessed by what we believe. Just what we read you here in
Ephesians chapter one. Thank God for this greatest blessing
of all the blessing of believing blessing of believing.