My text tonight is the book of
Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 1 verses 1
through chapter 6 and verse 24. I'm going to begin a series of
messages preaching through the book of Ephesians. I have in my office three very
large volumes of notes. from a series of messages I preached
on this book when I was 27 years old. And I don't intend to just
repeat to you what I preached 37 years ago, but I assure you
the doctrine hasn't changed so much as a hair's breadth. And
I want to begin anew tonight with this series and again give
you an overview of the book of Ephesians. The title of my message
tonight is Ephesians. to the praise of his glory. This blessed, blessed epistle
teaches us that everything God does, everything he has done,
everything he is doing, and everything he shall do is to the praise
of his glory. That's stated three times in
the first 14 verses of the opening chapter. This book is so very,
very meaningful, so instructive, and so practical. I love it because
the book speaks constantly of our Lord Jesus Christ. No matter
where you turn in these six chapters, no matter where you're reading,
no matter where you sit down and just pause and meditate,
you will find you're in the presence of the Lord Jesus immediately.
I went through the book again yesterday and again this afternoon.
55 times in these six chapters, God the Holy Ghost identifies
the Lord Jesus with the words in Christ, with Christ, for Christ,
in him, by him, 55 times in these six chapters. He's given us here
the work of our blessed Redeemer in his mighty saving grace. And
this book is delightful when you consider to whom it was written. It's addressed to the Ephesians.
Ephesus was a major, wealthy, metropolitan city of Asia Minor. It was called the Light of Asia. It was a city filled with brilliant,
wealthy people, the envy of the world in its day, tradesmen,
scholars, philosophers, orators, flocked to Ephesus. They thought
Ephesus has everything a man could want. But Ephesus was a
godless society. Actually that's not true. They
had many gods. But no room for the God of the
world. No room for the worship of our
God. A city altogether without the
knowledge of the living God. Like the society in which we
live in this day. It was an idolatrous, man-centered,
religious society in which religion walked hand in hand with superstition,
immorality, lasciviousness, and decadence of every kind. Religious
everywhere. Ungodly everywhere. In fact,
the Temple Diana openly promoted every moral evil, every moral
perversity imaginable. And yet, from amongst these base,
hell-bent pagans, God was pleased to raise up a people to worship
Him and raise up a church, a strong, influential church, to magnify
His name and call out His elect, a people in whom and by whom
God revealed His dear Son. And there's a great contrast
as you open the book. The man who writes the epistle
Paul. Now, as you read Paul's history,
you find out that this man was trained at the feet of Gamaliel.
He was a trained, brilliant Jewish teacher. He was trained in the
best training of his day. That's not true of most men in
the Scriptures who were called to be prophets, who were called
to be apostles, who were called to be preachers. Most of God's
servants who serve him in this capacity are just at best ordinary
men. Most of them fairly well uneducated. Most of them not terribly, terribly
given to intellectual academic pursuits. Most of God's servants
have not been historically and are not now. For the most part,
they're nobodies and nothings with no abilities to commend
them to anyone. It doesn't really matter whether
a preacher is learned or unlearned. It doesn't really matter whether
he is a polished orator or speaks clumsily. It doesn't really matter
whether he knows perfect grammar or whether he doesn't know a
verb from an adjective. It only matters that he preaches
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I won't call his name. I had someone call the name of
a preacher I greatly admire, a dear friend of mine. They said,
but he butchers the English language. And my response was, he sure
butchers it well. He uses it to proclaim the gospel
of God's free grace and does so with great influence and power
to those who hear him. You see, the power of the gospel
doesn't lie in the one who preaches it or even how he says it, but
it lies in the gospel itself. It is the message of God's grace
that is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. The message of God's grace, which
God uses to give sinners life and grace in Him. But Paul was
sent of God, not to the Jewish world. It's amazing. This man, Paul, such a brilliant
mind among the Jews. was not sent to preach the gospel
to the Jews. He was sent to preach the gospel
to the Gentiles. That's important because it's
needful to understand that all of Paul's natural abilities,
all of his natural intellect, all of his God-given brilliance,
all of his natural learning, all those things were completely
irrelevant in his service to God. You see, man's called of
God to preach the gospel. His natural abilities and gifts
don't qualify him. They don't open a door for him.
They don't make room for him. God gifts men to preach the gospel
where he would have them preach, to serve him among the people
to whom he sends them, and he gifts men accordingly. Paul's
training and learning as a Jew meant nothing among Gentile philosophers. It meant nothing in the Gentile
world. Paul's open doors of utterance
for the Gospel were doors opened to him by God the Holy Spirit. Not because he had degrees, not
because he graduated from this school or that, but because God
opened the door. My dear friend, our dear friend,
Brother Clay Curtis lives up there next to Princeton University.
Oh, what a renowned school. What an intellectual society.
And some comment was made when Clay first went there, maybe
he needs to have more training to be in this area. Not hardly,
not hardly. The training is not the power
of the preacher. The training is not the power
of God, but the gospel of God's free grace. He's gifted that
man so marvelously to declare. The Apostle Paul, This man who
would not even speak to the Gentiles at Ephesus before God saved him,
unless he had to. This man who would not condescend
that low before God saved him, is sent of God to these pagan,
vile, filthy Gentiles at Ephesus to declare the gospel of God's
grace, and he cherished them. because they are God's saints,
the faithful in Christ Jesus. The book of Ephesus brings us
into heavenly places. The phrase heavenly places, those
two words are used five times in this epistle. Heavenly places
are places of heavenly experience. Places where God reveals himself. Places where God teaches us of
himself. Places where God works for us
and works in us. It refers not to a place, but
rather it refers to the experience of God's grace wherever it is
given us in Christ. And the book of Ephesians is
all about grace. Grace, grace, grace. We'll look
at these five chapters together very briefly tonight, just skimming
the surface. But here is the summary of each
chapter. In chapter one, grace is explained. In chapter two, Paul describes
for us the experience of grace. In Chapter 3, he speaks of the
enjoyment of grace. And then in Chapter 4, we see
grace educating us. And in Chapter 5, grace exercised
by God's people. And in Chapter 6, grace exhorting
us as we live for God in this world. First, in Chapter 1, the
Apostle Paul explains to us what God has done for us in his marvelous
saving grace in Christ. He begins the epistle by telling
us of the spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. Grace be unto you, verse 2, 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. Now the word blessed here, Not
the same as the word blessed we see in Romans 4. Here the
word speaks of eulogy. It's the word from which we get
our word eulogy. Exalted, praised, highly esteemed are you. And highly esteemed let us have,
let us be, let us hold God in high esteem. Exalt God who has
made us to be highly esteemed in his sight. He did this 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 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. And it goes on through verse
14. to tell us of these many blessings with which God has
blessed us. He's chosen us in Christ. He's predestinated us
to be conformed to the image of His Son in everlasting glory. He has adopted us as His sons
and daughters, accepted us in the Beloved, redeemed us with
the precious blood of His Son, forgiven us of all our sins,
and He gives us the knowledge of the mystery of His will in
the revelation of the Gospel. He's called us and given us an
inheritance we've already obtained in Christ Jesus. And He's sealed
us. Sealed us in Christ by His Spirit
in the work of His grace. More than that, He's given us
the foretaste of heaven. He's given us the earnest of
the Spirit. And then in verse 15, Paul speaks
to these saints at Ephesus with great concern as he prays that
God would give them an understanding. Praise that God would cause them
to understand His work and His ways. His work and ways for us
and in us. I understand something of Paul's
desire. Desire that we might know the
hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance,
and the greatness of His power by which we are saved. That's
what I want for you. I want you to know and understand
as much as you can God's work for you and in you by his marvelous
grace in Christ. And then in verses 20 through
23 of this first chapter, the apostle speaks to us about the
fullness of Christ. In verse 23, having told us that
Jesus Christ is himself our head, our master, our king, our lord,
in whom all fullness dwells, He says, we are the fullness
of Him that filleth all in all. Christ fills all things. He is God everywhere. God omnipresent. His influence,
His power, as well as His works are known through all the creation. And He Himself is everywhere
present. And yet, this one who is Christ,
the God-man, God in our flesh and in him is all the fullness
of God and Paul says we are his fullness as He is the completeness
of everything the completeness of God's creation the completeness
of God's salvation the completeness of God so we are the completeness
of Christ our mediator and Oh, what security, what blessedness
this is. We are the completeness of him
who is the completeness of everything. All the members of his body he
must have or he is incomplete and that cannot be. And then
Paul concludes this chapter telling us that God's put all things
under his feet. Gave him behead over all things
to the church is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth
all in all." And in chapter 2 he speaks to us about the experience
of grace. Oh, the rich experience of grace
every believer is made to know in Christ Jesus. In chapter 2
verses 1-10 this experience of grace is described as that work
of God in regeneration. At the end of the chapter, the
second half of the chapter, it speaks of God's work of grace
in reconciliation. Regeneration is the sovereign
work and operation of God in us. It is the work of God making
us new creatures in Christ. It is what our Lord calls being
born again. It is a resurrection from the
dead, the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection. On such the second death hath
no power. Now here's the condition of all
men by nature. You hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and in sins. That's where we were when God
called us by his grace. Dead. Dead. Spiritually dead. Without life
without ability, without sensibility, without desire, without passion
toward God. Dead. The sinner without Christ
has nothing to offer to God, has nothing to give to God, has
nothing God will have. He's dead. And the only way that
condition is ever changed is if God works in you, giving you
life. and grace in Christ Jesus, wherein
in time past you walked according to the course of this world.
We all live just like everybody else. That needs to be stressed. We
all live just like everybody else. Some folks take a high
road in the eyes of men and some a lower road in the eyes of men,
but all according to the course of this world. According to the
prince of the power of the air the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience Among whom also we all had our
conversation Among the children of men we all had our manner
of life in times past and this is how it's described in the
lust of our flesh Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind and were by nature children of wrath even as others. And that means two things. We
were by nature God-hating rebels. Wrathful children. Wrathful children. Some of you know exactly what
that is in a human relationship. I was a wrathful child. I grew
up despising authority and rebelling at every point. I despised every
restraint. I despised every form of authority,
a wrathful child. That's what all men are by nature,
wrathful. We lived all our lives with our
fist in God's face. I'll do what I want to until
God stopped us in our mad rush to hell. Preacher, I didn't live
like that. Oh, yes, you did. Oh, yes, you
did. You may have been religious as
all get out, but just as wrathful as the most debased criminal
over here in the prison. Just as wrathful as anybody else.
The second thing that means is that we were children under a
sense of wrath. God's children, yes, but under
a sense of condemnation until God speaks peace in the soul.
Every man by nature lives under the sword of justice, a consciousness
of guilt before God. And here's the mighty work of
God in the new birth, but God. Somehow you ought to find some
way to underscore that in your scriptures and bold face it so
that you don't miss it every time you read it, but God. We ran headlong toward hell and
would never have stopped, but God stepped in our way, Charlie,
and stopped us. And that's the only thing that
stopped us. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great grace,
his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in
trespasses and in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace are you saved. And then
in the latter part of this chapter, he speaks of reconciliation. The result of regeneration is
reconciliation. We were, without Christ, aliens
from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants
of promise, having no hope without God in the world. But now, verse
13, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by
the blood of Christ. In Christ, in Christ, in Christ,
that's how we're reconciled to God. Chosen in Him, redeemed
by Him, called by Him, and disarmed by Him. So that now, we put down the weapons of our
warfare, we open our clenched fist, and we bow to our Redeemer. Being reconciled to God in the
sweet experience of His grace, Delighted that Christ is Lord. Delighted for Christ to rule. Delighted for Christ to have
his way. And those who are reconciled
to God in Christ are reconciled to one another in Christ. So
that the Jew and the Gentile is one. The barbarian, the heathen,
the bond, and the free are one. The learned and the unlearned
are one. The rich and the poor are one. The black and the white are one. The male and the female are one. And the scripture says in Christ
neither male nor female, neither bond nor free, so on. It's not
saying that there's not both a woman sitting there and a man
sitting there. That's not it. It's saying it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. social distinctions, all social
distinctions, all social distinctions are dissolved in Christ. God sweetly make them to dissolve
in my heart, make them to dissolve in my attitude. I recall my first
visit to Kingston, Jamaica, And no sooner had we gotten into
Brother Aaron Dumas' house, Brother Aaron and his wife were black
folks. He's from Trinidad, she's from
Jamaica. And his smallest boy came around and we were chatting
a little bit and he said, we don't see color in this house.
And I said, Aaron, I beg to differ. I beg to differ. You're a black
man and I'm a white man and we cannot exist and not recognize
that. But as believers, We recognize
the horrid evil of the racism that's ours by nature and we
deal with it. Let us be wise and ask God to
give us grace to recognize the horrid evil of recognizing social
distinction and elevating one person above another or lessening
one below another because of what they have or don't have,
because of where they live or don't live, because of the color
of their skin, because of their education or lack of education,
let us rather esteem each as Christ Jesus the Lord and esteem
each highly. Then in chapter three, the apostle
speaks to us in what I will call the enjoyment of grace. There
comes a time, sometime after you're converted, as you grow
in the grace and knowledge of Christ, that you begin to really
enjoy the grace of God. Again, let me try to illustrate
it. Shelby and I have been married
for nearly 46 years. I've been married almost all
my life. I was 18 years old when we got
married. If I had it to do over, I got married when I was 12,
but I was 18. And been married most of our lives. And we've
had a good life together, a good marriage. Laying in bed this
afternoon, having a cup of coffee after we got up from our nap,
and I thought to myself, we enjoy each other more than we ever
have. Something about the experience of the marriage, the longer the
experience continues in sweetness and in joy, the more you enjoy
life with one another. So it has been. And so it is
in the knowledge of God's grace in Christ. The more you walk
with God and experience his grace, the more you confidently enjoy
his grace. And Paul speaks here of this
enjoyment of the mystery of God's grace revealed. Look at verse
7. Whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the
grace of God given me by the effectual working of his power
unto me, whom less than the least of all saints is this grace given,
that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches
of Christ. And then this faithful pastor
with a pastor's heart addresses these Ephesian saints and says
he wants them to know in the fullest possible experience of
it all the blessed abundance of God's free grace in Christ.
He says I want you to know the manifold wisdom of God in the
scheme of grace in verses 9 and 10. I want you to know God's
eternal purpose of grace. Oh, how sweet to enjoy God's
revelation of grace and to enjoy the knowledge of the fact that
all God's purpose of grace is worked out for us day by day
in His providence. And then it says, I want you
to know the free accessibility of grace that's yours. Look at
verse 12. We have boldness and access with confidence by the
faith of Christ. We have boldness and access with
confidence to come to God because of the faith of Jesus Christ,
our mediator. When Lexus walked out the door
this morning, I said, I won't see you for a while, will I?
She said, no. And I said to what I've said to her many times,
She's grown up in this assembly. I want you to know, sweetheart,
I'm here for you. That's difficult for me to communicate
to your children. It's difficult for me to communicate
to you. I'm here for you. I want you to be free and feel
free to call me for anything, anytime, and I'll serve you any
way I can. I want to communicate that to
every one of you, to every one of you. I want to communicate
that to God's people everywhere in this world as I minister to
them. But somehow with a body like
this and a face like this and a voice like this, I had trouble
communicating it. I just, I had trouble communicating. She's
not afraid of me, but other folks just hesitant. But as you experience
God's grace, You begin to enjoy the free,
absolutely free, unrestrained, unbarred access we have to God
by the faith of Jesus Christ. So you come to God when you can't
come to me. You come to God when you can't
come to your husband or wife. You come to God freely, enjoying
his grace, and then Paul speaks of his prayer, expressing his
great desire for these saints. He says in verse 14, for this
cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
and praise that God will cause us, cause his people to know
the love of God, the love of God in Christ Jesus, the length
and breadth and height and depth of the love of God. And he concludes
this third chapter Expressing his desire in all
this, his aim in all this, in all of his labors, in all of
his preaching, in all of his writing, he says, Now unto him
that's able to do exceeding abundantly, above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the
church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Now turn over to chapter 4. Here, Paul shows us something of the
education of grace. I'll just call your attention
to the highlights. First, he urges us to unity. We are one in Christ. One in
Christ. Let us act as one. God has made us one, now let
us behave as one. Strive to keep the unity of the
Spirit. Strive to work at unifying one
another. Whenever something comes up that
seems to raise a little, just a little wall, knock it down.
Get rid of that. Don't say and do things to raise
a little wall. Seize every opportunity to get
something in. No. That's not worth it. Not worth it. No, no,
no. Strive to maintain this blessed
unity that God's given us in Christ to maintain it in day-by-day
experience. As we labor together, we're bound
together as a mighty weapon in the hand of God. Individually,
we're as useless as wet weeds. Can accomplish nothing. together,
God uses congregations like this for the furtherance of the Gospel.
And then he speaks about the gifts God has given in His Church. These gifts God gives to me,
and I was listening to Alan sing and play that clarinet a little
bit ago, and I thought, oh, what a great gift. What a great gift. And I don't have it. I was sitting
in front of Brother Milton Howard several years ago out in Rescue,
California, and we'd been singing, as we always do, congregational
hymns, and Milton leaned over and tapped me on the shoulder.
He said, Brother Don, you're tone deaf, aren't you? And I understood
what he meant. Yep, I can't sing a lick. I can't
sing a lick. Don't have those gifts. My gifts
are otherwise. Your gifts. You've got your gifts. gifts that God has put in you
as his child to use for the benefit of his church and his kingdom
and his family for the furtherance of the gospel. And these gifts
are given to each of us severally as God wills for our good and
his glory and the good of his kingdom collectively. And then
the apostle tells us that the grace of God, this grace of God
that we enjoy in Christ Jesus, is grace that teaches us godliness,
teaches us to walk with God, not in lasciviousness, not as
other people walk, but to walk with God, seeking his honor in
all things. Look at chapter 3, verse 17. The Apostle Paul, chapter 4 rather,
verse 17. He says, This I say therefore,
and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not, as other
Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that's in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who
being past feeling, given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work
all uncleanness with greediness. Now watch verse 20. But ye have
not so learned Christ. You didn't learn to live like
that from our Savior. Oh no, no. The Savior teaches
us to live unto God. To live for God and for one another. In a word, grace makes people
gracious. Let all bitterness, verse 31,
with wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking, all yak about
one another, all the gossip, all the, ah, did you see what
David did? Did you see what Shelby did? Did you see that? Don't talk
like that. That's what you expect from those
folks, not from God's people. Let this thing be put away from
you with all malice, with all ill intent. That's what malice
is. It's ill intent. The purpose
of saying such things is to do harm. Put those things away and
be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. And then in chapter
5, going down through verse 9 of chapter 6, The Apostle teaches
us something about the exercise of God's grace. As we have been
loved of God, we ought to walk in love with one another. Be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children. Imitate God. That's the word, Rex. Be imitators
of God. Act like God does as dear children
and walk in love. Walk in love as Christ also hath
loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet smelling savor. Why on earth should you treat
Don Fortner graciously? Why should you treat one another
graciously because God's treated you graciously. Do you need another
reason? Because Christ loved you and
your brother, you and your sister, and gave himself to God for us,
a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor to God. As people who are
called to be saints, We should seek always to live in a manner
becoming saints. Verse 3, chapter 5. Fornication
and all uncleanness are covetousness. Let it not be once named among
you. Now watch what it says, as become a saint. As become
a saint. You who are saints, you who are
holy, behave as a holy people. Verse 8. For ye were sometime
darkness, but now are ye light in the world. Walk as children
of light. Children of light. We try our
best to teach our children as we raise them to look beyond
their nose. You think, boy, well, he's finally
beginning to look beyond his nose and acting like he's got
some sense, acting a little bit mature. children of light walk
in this world understanding that everything you do and everything
you say has consequences in the reflection of God our Savior
and His grace. Forgive me for referring again
to personal illustration but I don't know a better way to
say what I want to say here. Faith growing up, she started
to go out with kids. You know, she'd go to various
things, 4-H or other things. She'd be out with other folks
out of our immediate influence, as children do and should do.
And then she got a little older and she'd start to go out with
other kids her age on her own. And I would say to her, sometimes
she was just a little shaver, and I said it until she was married
and sometimes still say it to her. Don't ever forget who you
are and who you are. Don't ever forget who you are
and who you are, because everything you say and everything you do
and everywhere you go has a reflection on your mother, and your father,
on our family name, on Grace Baptist Church, and on the God
we serve. Oh, man, what a burden to put
on a child. Wear it gladly, children of God. Don't ever forget who you are
and whose you are. You're not your own. You've been
bought with a price, so live like it. Grace so teaches us. Then in chapter 6, the Apostle
Paul continues giving us the exhortation of grace. In the
latter half of this chapter, he concludes the epistle exhorting
us with God's grace. He urges us to be strong in the
Lord and to stand firm in the gospel in the cause of Christ. Having done all, stand. Just plant your feet. Stand just
plant your feet and stand When you can't do anything else you
can stand your ground Having your loins girt about with the
gospel wearing the breastplate of righteousness Standing in
the shoes of the gospel with the shield of faith with Christ
the helmet of salvation with the sword of the Spirit praying
always with prayer and supplication in the Spirit, watching thereunto
with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And finally,
if we would serve our Savior, if we would serve our God in
the interest of His Kingdom, let us make it our heart's ambition
in all things in this world. Make it our heart's ambition
good for God's people and bring glory to God our Savior. Peace,
verse 23, peace be with you. Peace be to the brethren and
love be with you. Love with faith from God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all the end that
love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. Amen. All right, let's sing a
hymn.