The message this morning is out
of Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10. It was kind of born out of last
week's Sunday school lesson and Wednesday night's message out
of Exodus chapter 4. The title of the message, and
I told the folks Wednesday night I was going to bring a message
this morning on four things that a believer can do that nobody
else can do. But I had to change it to five.
There's five things. Five works that only a believer
can do. Now in Ephesians 2.10, he said,
we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them." Whatever it is he's talking about
here requires this new creation. You're created, he said. We're
God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto these good
works. Can you be a believer and not
walk in these things? No way. No way. Because God has before ordained. Ain't that what that says? Which
God has before ordained. Now what God ordains is going
to be done. If you don't get anything else out of what I say
this morning, get that. Whatever He ordains is going
to be done. I want to say this at the outset
of this message. I'm not talking to you this morning
about works that you can do either before or after conversion that
merit salvation. I'm not talking. That's not my
subject this morning. He tells us very clearly back
here. Listen to this. Verse 8. This is before he makes this
statement. He gives us something here to
inform us. There's something different about
what he's talking about here and what he's talking about in
verse 10. By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Plainly told that in these verses
preceding this. So the good works of which I
hope to talk about this morning are not the cause of faith, and
they're not the cause of salvation, but they are the fruit of it.
And these five things describe these good works wherever they're
declared in the Scripture. Whenever he talks about the good
works of the believer, these are the five things that he's
talking about. Five good works performed by
believers that cannot be produced by unregenerate men. A man can adopt a form of religion. He can join a church. He can
be baptized. give of his time and his income.
He can change his outward habits. He can adopt new friends. He
can change his dress. He can perform all manner of
religious duties. He can take the Lord's table.
He can be baptized. He can do all of these things.
He can do any of those things. And those are the things that
he calls good works. And although these things may
be inclusive of what I'm telling you this morning, that's not
the good works that I'm talking about. Those are not the things. But there's five things that
none but those who are new creatures in Christ Jesus can do. And they
can't be mimicked by natural man, so they must be by God who
worketh in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. These
things are works created in us, and we actually do them by the
power of God. These five things. All right,
here's the first thing. Have I got your attention? Repentance. Repentance. Repentance is a turning from
yourself to God. Seeing yourself for what you
are. It's despising what you are. Natural man can't do that. He
won't do that. He'll defend Himself to the death.
He'll defend Himself to separating from brother against brother,
father against son. Our Lord talks about it over
in Matthew. Your enemies are going to be them of your own
household. Why? Because they don't have this repentance. They
don't mourn over what they are. They'll defend it to the death.
Let me see if I can show you this in the Scripture over here
in Luke chapter 13. We're given an example of this.
And this is how the natural man thinks. And they approached the
Lord with this thought. A great judgment appeared toward
Israel in Galilee. This is under their Roman bondage
now. Pilate had ordered the death
of some Jewish worshipers and mingled their blood with the
blood of the sacrifices that they brought to worship God.
And the people who saw this, who witnessed this, they ran
to the Lord. And the way they told the story
was that these who brought those things to worship were great
sinners. They had done something horribly
wrong before God, and God judged them that way under this evil
king. Now listen to this, Luke 13, verse 2. And Jesus answering said unto
them, suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all Galileans? Is that what you think? That
why you think this fell on them? Because they were great sinners
above everybody else? Because they suffered such things,
he said? I tell you nay, but except ye
repent. You're all going to likewise
perish. You're all going to likewise
perish. Or those 18, he said, upon whom the tower of Siloam
fell. What about them? Think ye that
they were sinners above all men that dwell in Jerusalem? He said,
I tell you nay. But except you repent, you shall
all likewise perish. Whatever it is that men are commanded
to repent of, it's universal, because in Acts 17, verse 30,
he tells us that God commands all men everywhere to repent. Universal, whatever it is. Whatever
it is that we're to turn from, whatever it is that we're to
despise, concerns every living son of Adam. And I say this, that repentance
is an experiential, understand me, experiential awareness of
sin born out of a believing heart who sees himself in his substitute,
fully exposed for what he is on the cross. Fully exposed in
his life, in his humiliation, in his servitude, and in his
sufferings and death on the cross at the hand of God. All those
resurrected out of spiritual death know what this death is. They understand what it is. Listen to how the Apostle Paul
words this experience in the early verses here in Ephesians
chapter 2. He said, You hath equipped them
who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past You
walked 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. Now listen, among whom we all
had our conversation in times past, in the lust of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Every believing
soul knows what this death is. How does he know it? He knows
it by the Word of God. He knows it by the crucified
Christ that he's heard in the preaching of the Gospel. And
he knows it by experience. God the Holy Spirit convinces
him of sin. Sin is not what you do. Sin is
what you are. When you're convinced of sin,
you'll hate yourself. Up until that point, you're proud
of something. You might not be proud of everything
you ever did. I asked a fellow one time about
his spiritual standing, and he said, well, I ain't always doing
the right thing. But he said, one thing I can
say. If you still got one thing, you
don't know what this is. You don't know what I'm talking
about. There is no one thing. Man at his best state, altogether
vanity. That's what it says. And repentance
comes through the preaching and believing of the crucified Christ.
Who can see Him in His humility as a man, penniless, homeless? He said, the birds of the air
have nests, and the foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has
nowhere to lay His head. Penniless, had no money. despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
Who can see the suffering Savior mocked and whipped and slapped
and spit upon? Who can see him in his mocking
purple robe being laughed to scorn and a hundred other things
that you've heard time and again? Who can see these things done
in a representative man, in a substitute, and still imagine that there's
something in the man of whom he represented some potential
that makes him savable. Who can see that? Is there anyone here this morning
that believes that his suffering and death were just an option? I cannot imagine that God the
Father would subject His Son to such indignities and humilities
except for those for whom He chose to save. No other reason. And that they were beyond all
hope in themselves. Listen to what Paul says here.
He said in Romans chapter 8, he said what the law could not
do in that it was weak through the flesh. We're talking about
sinful flesh. God sending His own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the
flesh. Laid it upon the substitute and
publicly judged their crimes and exposed the exceeding sinfulness
of their sin. Listen to how Jeremiah, the weeping
prophet, told about this. He said concerning this coming
Redeemer, he said, the yoke of my transgressions is bound by
His hand. Talking about God's hand. They
are wreathed and come upon my neck. He made my strength to
fall. The Lord has delivered me into
their hands from whom I am not able to rise up. And for those
things I weep. Mine eye, He said, mine eye runneth
down with water because the comforter that should relieve my soul is
far from me. The Lord has commanded concerning
Jacob, that is the truest, that his adversary should be round
about him, and Jerusalem become as a minstreless woman, convinced
of sin. Convinced of sin. What's revealed
in the crucified Christ about man is that at his best state,
he's altogether vanity, destruction, and misery are in his ways. His
throat is as an open grave. The fangs of the serpent are
in his mouth and he's full of cursing and bitterness. He's
swift to shed blood. A perfectly holy and righteous
law was rendered totally without effect. That's what Paul is saying
there in Romans 8. Totally without effect because
man's nature is so evil that it could not perceive it and
would not bow to it. Carnal mind is enmity against
God, is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it
be. None righteous, none good, none that understandeth, none
that seeketh after God. And seeing the goodness of God
in the dying substitute, lost sinners are led to repentance. It's the goodness of God that
leadeth thee to repentance. Shows you these things. And I
tell you this, only true believers can perform this good work of
repentance because they understand what they are. They understand
what they are. They quit looking within. There's
nothing within but dead men's bones. That's what the Lord told
those Pharisees. He said, what people see, he
said, you do. You attend to that. You make
white. You're like those whited sepulchers
down there in the cemetery. You're beautiful to look at,
but underneath you're full of dead men's bones. You may clean
the outside of the cup and the platter, but within you're full
of corruption. Full of corruption. Only believers
know that. And the believer who knows that
turns from himself. He quits looking within. He quits
talking about his good works. He quits talking about his potentials
and his righteousness and his good deeds. And he cries about
what he is. Read Psalm 51. Read what David
said in Psalm 51. God requires truth in the inward
parts. And in those inward parts, David
said, I'm just full of corruption. He said, I was shapen in iniquity
and came forth from the womb of a sinner, and I myself am
a sinner, and he just goes on and on and on in that song, in
repentance. Alright, here's the second thing.
Only a believer can do that. Ain't nobody else going to repent
of sin. They're not going to do it. And I tell you this, until
you've repented of sin, you're not going to turn to Him. You're
not going to do it. And you don't believe God, because
God tells you what you are. I stand up here and I say these
things, and then I meet people after church, well, preacher,
you can count hard on a man, ain't you? No. I'm just telling
you what God said. If you believed God, you'd see
it. You'd know it. You'd experience it. All right,
here's the second thing. Only believers can walk in love. Walk in love. You cannot be brought to trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ and not have the love of God shed
abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. That's an impossibility.
It has to do with where he finds you in your sins. That's why
I say it's an experiential knowledge. He finds you in your sins, worthless,
hopeless, helpless, and he raises you up, not for anything in you,
Not for anything in you. Listen to this here in Ephesians.
All of these things right here in Ephesians 2. But God, verse 4, who is rich
in mercy, watch it now, for His great love wherewith He loved
us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sin, hath quickened
us to gather with Christ. It's an impossibility to believe
on Christ and not experientially know about the love of God. It's experiential knowledge.
It's born out of desperation and helplessness and born out
of total depravity and judgment. You had the quickened who were
dead. You might have had some ideas like the prodigal. of coming
back home and you might be acquainted with how even those who serve
the Father are treated better than what you're treated out
in the world. You might have all these things on your mind
and start on this journey back and thinking about the goodness
of God and start back. But I tell you, when the Father
comes running out to you with all the gifts of your inheritance,
all the gifts of your sonship, and throws His arms around you,
and hugs you, and calls for a celebration, and puts the seal on your finger,
then you'll know something about love. Love. Love. Nothing in you, all in Him. All in Him. That Father stood
looking through the window expecting his son to come home. Experiential knowledge. And you
know what it means to love God. Love is the hand when justice
demands what's due that sweeps you behind and says, put it on
my bill. Charge it to my name. I stand
for him. Every believer has experienced
the Father's love. And it's an utter denial of the
Word of God and the reality of faith, to profess a faith without
love. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. That's what it says. Only a believer
can love. And he can love because he first
loved Him. We love God because He first
loved us. Preacher, I believe, but I just,
I can't love my enemies. I just can't, I love, I mean,
I believe, but I can't get over what somebody said to me. Really?
Tell me again how God loved you. Huh? Why you were yet enemies? Ain't
that how He loved you? Ain't that what you were? shaking
your fist in the face of God, doing everything contrary to
his word and his will. Ain't that when God loved you? Even when we were dead in trespasses
and sins. When we were without strength
and due time, Christ died for the ungodly. God commendeth his
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. When we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of Him. Tell me how God loved
you again. You can't talk about God's love
to you that you've experienced under the grace of God and hold
anything against anybody. You can't do it. And I'll tell you this, this
weakness and inability and unwillingness is not an excuse for our sin.
Believers work the good work of love. Listen to this. Beloved, let
us love one another. For love is of God, and everyone
that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. That's just the
way it is. And nobody else can do it. You
try to conjure it up. You stand there and let the enemy
stand there and just slap you in the face. And you stand there
and love him. I want to see you do it. The
only way you can do it, brother, is by the experience of this
love. You can do it for Christ's sake. That's the only way you
can do it. All right, here's the third word.
Only believers can do it. Submit. Submit. Natural man will not bow to the
authority of Christ. Where is the man, religious or
otherwise, who will submit himself to the authority of God in Christ? That's the issue before this
world right here this morning. The authority of Christ. You're
going to bow. God said He suffered him in His
humility, and He brought these sufferings through which we're
redeemed on Him. And He was obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly exalted
him, and given him a name above every name, that at the name
of Jesus every knee is going to bow. That's the issue. You're
going to bow to him. Sinner, bow down. That's what
the gospel proclaims. Bow down. You bow to him as the
way, the truth, the life, the light of the world. being made
of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
the true vine, the source of all life and fruit, the heavenly
bread, the water of life, the good shepherd and bishop of our
soul. We're going to bow to it. We're
going to bow to it. And to bow to Christ is to see
him on the throne of his eternal dominion. Psalm chapter 2, he
said, God said, I have set my king upon my holy hill in Zion. When did he do that? In eternity. And he said, this day have I
begotten him for this seat on the throne. And I'll have you
all in derision who oppose him. Now you better kiss the son,
lest he be angry and you perish in the way. God the Father put
Him there when He declared the decree in eternity. And by that
eternal decree, He become the firstborn of every creature.
It's by virtue of His power and dominion that all things were
created, that all things are maintained, that all providences
are reigned. It's under the scepter of the
King. The scepter shall not depart
from Judah till Shiloh come. Then He take the scepter. And
God sets Him on the throne and all things are under that scepter.
Everything that is. All things were created by Him
and for Him. He's before all things and by
Him all things consist. And He's the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things He might have the preeminence. And to bow to
Christ is to bow to the King of glory who has all power in
heaven and earth in His hands. To bow to Christ is to recognize
His authority as supreme and in all its designated persons. What you talking about, preacher?
I'm talking about parents to your children. That authority is of Christ. Children, obey your parents.
That's His authority. And if I'm a believing child,
that's what I'll do. All of its delegated persons,
parents to children, husbands, the head of the wives, the employer
over the employee, all civil government, pastors over their
assemblies, Christ overall. That's his delegated authority.
Don't you ever think that you can come in and bow down to Christ
and then reject all the rest of his delegated authority. That's foolishness. He tells
us, where is it, Romans chapter 13, the powers that be are of
Him. There is no power except that of God. That scepter rules
in civil government. It rules in the home. It rules
at the workplace. It rules in the church. You bow
to it, or God will send you to hell, one or the other. But you're
going to bow. You're going to bow. And I tell
you this, God will find your point of rebellion. There is
no salvation in baptism, but you let it become an issue between
you and God, and God will send you to hell, or you'll be baptized
one or the other. You're going to bow. You're going
to bow to His authority, and wherever it is, He'll find it.
He'll find it. Old King Naaman, they come down
there, and the prophet wouldn't even come out and talk to him.
And he brought this big aunt to Rodge with him, had all these
things, and he said, well, I thought he'd come out and say some words,
and, you know, and be a, and have this, have this thing, and
we'd do this thing out here, he said, and he wants me to go
down there and dip in that muddy river? He said, I ain't gonna
do it. That servant said, you are a leper. Ain't you? You forgot about that. You are
a leper. If I was you, I'd go down and
dip in the mud. It'd be worth it, wouldn't it? Huh? Did that
river have anything to do with his leprosy? Not one thing. But
it did to him. That's right. He'd have dipped in that river
or died a leper. One or the other. I'm telling
you, he'll find your point of rebellion wherever it is, and
he'll break you or send you to hell. David cried in Psalm 51, 17,
the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite
heart. Oh God, thou wilt not despise. Submission to Christ is known
in several ways. It's known by submitting to His
preeminence in the Scriptures. Secondly, it's to submit to the
Scriptures themselves as the rule of life. And thirdly, it's
to submit to all this delegated authority of Christ. And only
a true believer will submit himself into the care of his pastor and
take his exhortations and take his rebukes. Everybody will take those exhortations,
but they won't take them rebukes. Listen to this, Hebrews chapter
12, verse 7. If you endure chastening, that's
correction. That's what they're talking about.
God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom
the father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons.
That man that The pastor comes to and rebukes in the Spirit
of God and according to the Word of God, and he won't take that
rebuke. He's a bastard. He's not a son. I'm telling you
the truth. We're talking about submission.
You want to know what submission is? Here it is. That's submission. Where is the natural man who
boasts of his free will and human rights and carnal wisdom who's
willing to put himself into the hands of God's King? and submit
himself to all his delegated authority in the church, in the
home, and in this world. Can you do that? Can you rest? When you get a president in there
and he won't do nothing, can't do nothing, whatever, can you
rest? Can you rest? You see this one rising up, and
that one rising up, and this power over here, oh boy, that
sleeping giant, and you woke him up, and he's mad and angry,
and here he goes. Can you rest? Believers can. They can submit. Bow down. He's on the throne. Alright, here's the fourth thing. Only believers can worship. That's
right. Only believers can worship. Philippians 3, verse 3 said,
For we are the circumcision, true spiritual Israel, which
worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no
confidence in the flesh. Believers worship the true and
living God, and their lives are a testimony Their mannerisms in the assemblies
are a testimony to it. Everything they say and do revolves
around this, this thing of worship. They came and told old Eli, they
said, your two sons, they didn't want to tell him. And he said,
you tell me of the same thing before you that whatever it is,
it's wrong. He said, you tell me. They said,
well, God killed your two sons. He said, it's the Lord let him
do what he thinketh right. Didn't face him. Didn't face
him. They came and told the same man
they said the ark's been taken. He rocked backward in the chair,
broke his neck, and died. What do you reckon was the focal
point of that man's life? Worship. And when he saw the
means of that worship destroyed, he killed him. Killed him. Shocked
him to his shoes. Worship. Worship is the single most important
thing to a believer. Worship. He counts the days in
expectation. He, like David, he said, I'm
glad when they said to me, let's go up to the house of the Lord.
He said, I'm glad. I'm glad. All right, I'm running
out of time. Here's the last thing. The last
good work which God has ordained that all believers walk in is
the work of perseverance. Perseverance. Peter said, this
lively hope to which we've been begotten, concerns and inheritance
incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away. It's reserved
in heaven for you. Now listen. who are kept by the
power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
at the last hour. Now that's so. That's so. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
10. Let me show you something over there. I'm saying that believers
Work, a work of perseverance. You call it keeping on, keeping
on. You call it whatever you want to call it. I'm telling
you, they believe. These all died in faith. That's
what Paul said about them. They all died in faith. He tells
us that. Hebrews chapter 11. Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, these all died in faith. And so will every
other believer. Now watch this over here. Hebrews
10, verse 38. Now the just shall live by faith. That's what sets the tenor of
his life. Faith. That's why his whole life
is concerned with this thing of faith. But if any man draw
back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But, boy, that's a big
but right there. But we are not of them that draw
back unto perdition. but of them that believe to the
saving of the soul." Perseverance. Perseverance. Here's what John said. He said,
they went out from us because they were not of us, for had
they been of us, they no doubt would have continued with us.
Why? Because God ordained them to
work this work of perseverance. And they're all going to do it.
How are they going to do it? By the power of God. by the power
of God. Only a believer is content to
rest himself in Christ and stand in this grace of faith all the
days of his life. This life is what David talked
about in Psalm 23, walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
We're in it right now. And he walks every day of his
life through that valley. Through that valley by faith.
And he's content to stay right there. This gospel preached and received
will be the gospel, Paul said, by which you're saved over in
1 Corinthians 15 if, he said, you keep in memory what was preached
unto you unless you have believed in vain. The good works of faith
created in Christ Jesus in which all believers are ordained of
God to walk in are repentance, love, submission, worship, and
perseverance. Every one of them is going to
do it, and nobody else can. They can pretend, but they can't
do it. They can't do it. And God is
going to try these things. He's going to try. And when He
does, He's going to expose these good works. He'll try that love,
and when He does, that love will come shining through. He's going
to try this perseverance. When He does, they're going to
keep on. This is what's going on. It's not changing your dress
and quitting smoking or starting smoking. I told somebody the
other day, I think about taking it up again. It's not what goes in that defiles
a man, it's what comes out. It's what's already in there.
And that's what makes him turn from himself to the living God.
And when he turns, All of these things that God has before ordained,
He's going to do. Even the smallest, youngest believer
can do these things.