Okay, so turn with me to the
first chapter of Ephesians because I want to, it's my intention
anyway, to begin a study of this epistle to the Ephesians. So
Ephesians chapter one and the first few verses are going to
be our consideration this morning with God's help. Redemption through
His blood. We're going to be sharing the
bread and wine at the close of this service. And this is the
basis of our acceptance with God. Is only that, only ever
that, the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have redemption
through His blood. Paul wrote this letter to the
Ephesians and it's clear that he had a great love and affection
for this Ephesian church. You can read in the book of Acts
the account of the different travelings and where he went
to and if you get to Acts chapter 19 you'll read about him going
there initially and finding some who were believers or seem to
be believers and he said to them have you received the Holy Spirit
since you believed and they said we hadn't even heard that there
was such a thing and so he taught them the gospel in truth and
they were baptized again properly in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ and they heard the truth and they learned the truth and
they had those first century signs of the fact that they knew
that truth in that they spoke with tongues and the evidences
of the Holy Spirit were there amongst these Gentile believers
in this idolatrous place. And he ended up spending two
years there teaching in the house of one Tyrannus. And then you'll
know the account of his leaving Ephesus in the Acts of the Apostles
chapter 20 and verses 17, the second half of the chapter, right
down to verse 38, is the farewell to the elders of the Ephesian
church on the beach when he's just about to get in the boat
to leave them and to leave them for good. They knew they would
never see his face again. But he wrote this epistle to
them. An epistle of great love and
concern for them, concern for the church, because It was in
the midst of blindness. Now you think that we live in
a blind society spiritually. You think we live in a dark society
concerning the things of God and you're not wrong. It's very
true. Absolute darkness. The darkness
of the heart of the natural man, however nice that natural man
might be, his heart is darkened because he doesn't know the things
of the Spirit of God because They are spiritually discerned.
But for the grace of God and the Holy Spirit making alive
and giving faith and giving the eyes to see and the ears to hear,
no man, including us, would ever believe these things. And so
our society is blind, but this Ephesian society was in darkness
and superstition and idolatry. They had that goddess, Diana,
that was, I think it was one of the seven wonders of the world
regarded as, wasn't it? With hanging gardens of Babylon
and all the rest of it. And they cried out in... Where
was it? Was it Acts 19? I think so. Great
is Diana of the Ephesians. Great, you know, and there was
a great riot erupted because of the gospel that Paul was preaching
there. But yet, in the midst of that dark idolatry and blindness
and sin and darkness of the human heart, under the preaching the
sound of the preaching of the gospel of grace God the Holy
Spirit had done that which God has said from the beginning he
will always do in the most unlikely places God had called out some
of his elect there because he prophesied through Jeremiah Jeremiah
32 37 and 38 behold I will gather them out of all
countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my
fury, and in great wrath, and I will bring them again unto
this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely, and they
shall be my people, and I will be their God. This is God. You know, people interpret that
as we're looking in the Isaiah study. They say they just regard
that as being Jews going back to modern-day Palestine, Israel.
And of course, we know from what God says throughout his word.
That is not the case. The Israel of God is his church. The Israel of God is his people,
electing Christ from before the foundation of the world. And
wherever they are scattered in this evil world, in the lostness
and deadness of their own sin, he promises that he will gather
them out. He will pluck them from that
which they deserve, which is his wrath and his judgment. He
will pluck them from that as brands from the burning, and
they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And he did.
In that place, he brought some out of that darkness into his
marvelous light and some made their living because it was a
place of of great superstition and religious sorcery and witchcraft
and all sorts of other things and they had their textbooks
of sorcery and of witchcraft and uh... i'm never a great fan
of uh... events in history where books
are burned but here is one that i am a great fan of because these
Ephesians who were enlightened They were so disgusted with that
which had been their trade, by which they made their living,
that all of their manuals of superstition and idolatry, they
brought them together and they made a big bonfire and they burned
them. You can read about that in Acts chapter 19 and verse
19. They burned the books of superstition. It's a powerful epistle to what
became a strong church, a strong church there. But of course,
there's always the warning, and no doubt we'll return to this
again and again. This isn't the only epistle to the Ephesians
in the Bible. You know, there's another one.
It's in the book of Revelation. It came by the apostle John in
the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's in Revelation chapter 2,
and it's to the angel of the church, the pastor, the messenger
of the church at Ephesus. And they are still, many, many
years later, doing all sorts of things very very well they're
absolutely strict and rigid on doctrinal purity and so must
we be and all of those things but he had somewhat against them
something against them and the thing that was against them is
what we must guard against the thing that was against them was
that they had left their first love who is the first love of
the children of God? it's the Lord Jesus Christ it's
him you cannot walk through this life and be right with God in
any way at all and do that which is right and pleasing to him
unless you are in love with the Lord Jesus Christ unless he is
your beloved unless you're looking unto Jesus the author and finisher
of your faith unless you are in love with him like the song
of Solomon the bridegroom and his bride in love with the Lord
Jesus Christ he is first in all things in all things and then
everything else slots into its rightful place, and everything
else is in its right order. All other relationships are in
its right order, but we must always look to Him first, in
heart devotion, and stay there, and don't move from there, and
keep going there. It's not the law of God, the
law of Moses, that is our rule of life, but it's devotion to
Christ, and Him that is our rule of life. So anyway, let's come
to these first few verses Paul gives a greeting 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
this is Paul writing this is Paul who had been Saul. Don't we tend to think that Paul
has always been a great exponent of the Christian faith and of
the truth? And we forget that the one who is writing had been
Saul. Now, in the history of the world
and in the history of faith and in the history of God calling
fallen man out of darkness into his marvellous light, I don't
think there has ever been a more dramatic turnaround. I once read
a little arch book, you know there used to be these arch books
for children, do you remember these little arch books? And
there was the story of the conversion of the Apostle Paul and of course
it had all been translated into Arminian thinking that Paul was
presented with some facts and Paul decided to give his heart
to the Lord. Paul was going furious to Damascus
to arrest them and to bring them bound and to crush this movement
that he hated passionately because it ran against his religion and
everything he thought was right and he was going to see that
they were destroyed. He didn't decide to follow Christ,
Christ stopped him in his tracks absolutely stopped him dead in
his tracks and changed him. and took that heart of stone
out of him and put in him that heart of flesh and taught him
the gospel of his grace. It wasn't by flesh and blood
that he learned it, it was by Christ directly revealed. This is why he says to me, not
just on the Damascus road, but when he was with the risen Christ
in the desert, in Arabia, for three years, learning the gospel
of His grace. He went to Jerusalem only to
confirm things with them, but not to be taught it. He wasn't
taught by flesh and blood. He was taught by Christ. Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ. An apostle means a messenger. But, listen, there are those
who say there are apostles today. There are not. These were one-off
messengers. They established, in writing,
the doctrine of the early church following the ascension of Christ.
These were once only, never to be repeated, messengers. The
church continued, as it says in Acts chapter 4, in fasting, and prayers, and the
breaking of bread, and the apostles' doctrine. They taught the doctrine
which was the basis of the gospel. They expounded the scriptures
which were the Old Testament scriptures. They applied it to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Like I was telling you earlier,
the passage in Amos that sounds as if it's talking about Jews
returning to Israel in the Middle East in our day. And James, with
all of the apostles there in Acts 15 in the Council of Jerusalem,
stands up and he says, that's talking about Gentiles coming
into the church today. And if they interpreted it that
way, we not only have the right to interpret it that way, but
we have the right to say that anybody who doesn't interpret
it that way and does interpret it as a literal return of physical
Jews to a land in the Middle East, is wrong, is not in accordance
with the scriptures. These were the apostles, the
messengers, those who laid the foundation of Christian doctrine
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in those early years of
the church, and he, Paul, was the twelfth apostle. He wasn't
the 13th. You know there were 12 disciples,
and Judas betrayed Christ, and so that left 11. And when Christ
had ascended, I believe that Peter made a mistake, it's there
in Acts chapter 1, and they drew lots, and Matthias was chosen
to be the replacement of Judas, that there might be 12 of them
again. And if I'm not wrong, Do you know how many other times
we hear about Matthias in the rest of the New Testament? Not
a solitary once, but yet the rest of it is largely written
by this man, who was the choice of Christ to be the replacement,
to be the twelfth apostle. Because the number is significant,
I don't understand why, but you know there were twelve tribes,
patriarchs in the Old Testament, and twelve apostles. And often
we see twenty-four elders in the book of Revelation. It's
important, that number. It's symbolical of the Church
of God, of those who are called out by Him. So, this is from
Paul, who had been Saul, who is an apostle. And he's an apostle
of Jesus Christ. This is, you know, what's your
message, Paul? Of Jesus Christ. What is the
sum and substance of what you've got to teach us, Paul? Isn't
it about how we should live and all this? Of Jesus Christ. Because everything else flows
from that. I determined, he says, in 1 Corinthians
2 and verse 2, to know nothing else among you except Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Oh, didn't you teach them the
whole counsel of God? Didn't you tell the elders of
the Ephesians on the beach when you were leaving that you had
not shunned to declare unto them the whole counsel of God? So
surely you taught them other things than Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. No, Jesus Christ and Him crucified
is the whole counsel of God. Don't let anybody delude you
with any other message. Christ is the message of God. Christ is the gospel of His grace. It is not what you know about
Christ, but it is to know Him and the power of His death and
of His resurrection. It's to know Him. It's to have
Christ formed in you. When it pleased God, says Paul
in Galatians, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called
me to preach his gospel, to reveal his son in me, not to me. Oh look, you know, I can have
the facts about Henry VIII revealed to me, but I can't have Henry
VIII revealed in me. This is to have Christ revealed
in me. His gospel was the gospel, the
message. He was an apostle of Jesus Christ,
of his kingdom, of his person, of his work. And how did he decide
it? He didn't. It was by the will
of God. He didn't make himself this apostle. He wasn't promoted
by other men. You know how you rise up the
hierarchy in the Church of England and you become a sort of a junior
lay person and then you rise up the ranks and eventually one
day you might become bishop and then you might all through promotion
boards and deciding who's going to let you become, no by the
will of God Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of
God not his own because it was as I've just said when it pleased
God who separated him from his mother's womb to reveal his son
in him that he might preach the gospel. And this epistle is to
the saints that are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Jesus
Christ. There's a lot of superstition
and nonsense and unscriptural thinking around the subject of
saints. There are many, the vast majority
that you would speak to would think this, a saint is somebody
who was a believer who lived a particularly holy life, who
was particularly good in themselves, who did miracles that were confirmed
by witnesses, who was examined by the Pope and Cardinals, and
eventually, if regarded good enough, was declared to be a
saint. And there are various steps,
they say, on the way to being elevated to a saint. And so we
get Saint Martin's Church, and Saint Paul's Church, and Saint
Mary's, and... That's not scriptural. Scripture
is this, saint means sanctified one. Sanctified one means set
apart from the rest one. Set apart to be different. Set
apart from the world. The vessels in the temple of
God were sanctified. They were set apart from everyday
use. You weren't to eat your dinner
off them or drink your drink to quench it. They were vessels
sanctified for the service and purpose of the service of God.
And that's why they were sanctified. They didn't sanctify themselves.
They were passive in it. And so it is throughout scripture.
They are sanctified, means it's a passive thing. It's done to
them. And saints are those who have been set apart by God. The saints which are at Ephesus.
God says he has his saints throughout all nations and places and generations
and times. These are those that make up
the people of the living God. There are saints in Ephesus,
and I'm inclined to think there are some saints in Nebwith today,
and in other places. Those who are set apart by this
truth of the gospel of grace. And the mark of them is that
they're faithful in Christ Jesus. They're not saints because they're
faithful, they're faithful because they're saints. You see, if you
go on into the next chapter, Verse 8, chapter 2, by grace
are ye saved, through faith. Oh you had faith, and therefore
that meant that you became, no, that not of yourselves, read
what the scriptures say. To the law and to the testimony,
if they speak not according to this word, there is no light
in them. It's this word. For by grace ye are saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. This faithfulness
is the mark. What is the mark that you're
amongst the elect of God? Just simply this. You believe
the gospel of his grace. Oh, don't you have to pass a
certain test? No. Believe the gospel of his
grace. And if you truly believe the
gospel of his grace, and if you truly are committed to the son
of his love, and if you truly have Christ revealed in you,
you will bear the fruit of His Spirit. It may have faults and
imperfections because if we're in this flesh and we say we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but
nevertheless the tenor of your life will be to hate sin and
to do what you can not to commit sin and to look unto Jesus and
to bear the fruit and signs of His life and of His love and
of His salvation. So it's to believers. This epistle
is to believers. Now if you don't think you're
a believer, don't switch off. Keep listening. Because it may
be that God will speak to you as his word is opened. He may
open your eyes to hear what he's saying about these things. But
this is a message. God reveals the gospel to his
saints. To those whom he set apart. He
reveals the gospel to his people. This is the way God works. And
so he comes with a greeting, grace and peace in verse two,
grace be to you and peace from God our father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. The father and the Lord Jesus
Christ, two separate? No, one and the same. the Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time,
but the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father,
He has made Him known. He has manifested Him. He has
declared Him. No man shall see God and live.
And yet, in the Old Testament, people did keep seeing God and
living. The parents of Samson were horrified
when they realized that they had seen God and they were going
to die. And then the message was, fear not, you shall not
die. Because who had they seen? They'd seen the second person
of the Trinity. They'd seen the Lord Jesus Christ pre-incarnate. And so it is in many examples. The God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the God and Father who is manifested to his people
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be to you and peace from
our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace. Grace is the source. It's
the grace of God. So what's the reason for the
grace? I don't know other than this. It's God's will. It's God's purpose. It's God's
choice. He is the potter. Creation is the clay. It's for
him to make of one lump of clay a vessel for honor and another
lump of clay a vessel for dishonor. That's his sovereign prerogative.
And he does as he wills. He does as he pleases in the
affairs of man. He does what he wills because
he is God. If you have a God that doesn't
do that, you don't have a God that's worth, as Don Faulkner
would say, spit, I think he says. You don't have a God that's worth
worshipping. The true God who declares himself in this book
is a God who is sovereign over all things. He is the one who
chooses. He is the one who shows grace.
And what does flow from grace? Peace. the peace of God flows
because by nature we're enemies with God we don't have peace
by nature we're children of wrath even as the others as it will
tell us in chapter 2 early on in there children of disobedience
verse 2 that's what we're like by nature But in his grace, he
brings us peace. He brings us peace. John 14,
27, Jesus himself said to the disciples, peace I leave with
you. My peace I give unto you. Not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. We have peace with God. You can
die. If you're in Christ, you can
die happy, unafraid, contented, unalarmed that you have peace
with the God of the universe if you die outside of Christ
be very afraid for it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God for our God is still is always has been a
consuming fire for the God of the universe is angry with the
wicked those who don't believe his gospel every day not just
occasionally, every day. Our God is angry with the wicked
every day. So we have this introduction,
this greeting, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, grace and peace. Now then, the next few verses,
he launches into a very well-known doxology, a song of praise to
the living God, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ, according as he has chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world, 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 has made us accepted in the Beloved." You know, I imagine to most of
you these words are very familiar. I've been reading these words
for 40 years or more. These are very familiar words.
Oh, how easy it is. to come nowhere near scratching
the surface of how deep these words really are. This is almost
like Paul saying, right, greetings. Now, look where you are. In the world, you were in the
midst of idolatry and superstition and a lost condition and under
the condemnation justly of a holy God. who would call you to account
because you're mortal and you must face him, but look where
you are now by faith in Christ. You see, grace is what has determined
it all, but faith is that which appropriates it, that through
which we sense it and feel it and know it and experience it
through faith, through that gift of God. And he's saying, this
is where you were, but look where you are now. you who believe
the gospel of his grace look where you are having been born
a pauper and raised in poverty and starving and never having
a good meal and being entertained by trivia and baubles and rubbish
and stuff which was bad for you knowing nothing of true riches
and true comfort you wake up in a mansion. You know Oliver
Twist, the novel by Charles Dickens. He lives a life of poverty, this
little boy. He's born in poverty in the workhouse and he lives
a life of poverty and he falls in amongst thieves, Fagin and
his gang, and he gets into crime and all of those things. He's
then caught one day by a man whose handkerchief he's stolen,
and it turns out to be his grandfather. I may be getting the details
wrong, but is that roughly, that's it. And I remember the scene
in the film where he's a ragged pauper one day, and the next
morning he wakes up in this beautiful bedroom on, I don't know about
you, but you know when you change the bed and the sheet, there's
something about getting into the bed when the sheets are clean,
isn't it? you know not being hotels we don't change our sheets
every day but you know when you do get into a nice clean bed
with crisp clean sheets and the little boy wakes up wow never
experienced anything look where you are you're in the mansion
of your grandfather with all of the riches of your grandfather
now in a way in a little way this is what Paul is saying to
the saints there and to the faithful in Christ Jesus and that includes
us not just those at Ephesus he's saying look where you are
Look where you are. This is where you were, born
in poverty, raised in poverty, but look where you are in Christ.
You're in a mansion. You're in a spiritual mansion.
Blessing, he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places. There's lots of blessing going
on there. Blessing. First of all, blessed be the
God and Father. This is us blessing, praising
God. Praise God for what He's done,
for His blessings. But do you know, whilst we should
praise Him, whilst we ought to praise Him, our praise for Him
doesn't alter in any sense whatsoever His glory. It doesn't. It's just
us praising Him. Philpott wrote this, nothing
is added to the light, heat and splendor of the sun by the millions
of acres of waving corn which it ripens. They depend entirely
on the sun and in a sense as the wind blows they're all praising
the sun that's making them grow but they're waving doesn't in
any sense make the sun any brighter, and so it is. We praise God for
who He is, but don't think that our praise adds one bit to His
glory. He is glorious. And He's the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the God who, as
I've already said, is manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ to His
people. Christ is the son of God by an
eternal and inexplicable generation. He is the manifestation of God. Psalm 2 and verse 7 says this
very thing, that you are my son, this day have I begotten you.
Christ is that son by this eternal and inexplicable generation.
Blessed be this God, this eternal God. who is the father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. If you think that we're all going
up the same mountain from different sides and sitting on the top
is the one God whom we all worship, you know, the God whom you can
flippantly thank for stopping it raining yesterday afternoon
or whatever else, Sam knows what I mean. But, you know, That God
is not this God. The true God of Scripture is
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you do not know
the God who is manifested through the Lord Jesus Christ, the God
you know is a God that is one of your own imagination, and
an idol, and as much use to you as a carved totem pole. No good
at all. Can't speak, can't do, can't
save. Can't save. And he's blessed
us. He has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Fathomless blessings
on his people. all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places. How do I put this into words?
I can't. I'm lost for words. Fathomless
blessings on his people. Paul says again in 1 Corinthians
2 and verse 9, I has not seen nor ear heard neither has entered
into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those
that love him. for his people in heavenly places
in Christ. And what are they? What are these
blessings? How do we understand them? Just think of them like
this. They're things of which God speaks well. They're things
which God commends to his people, his blessings. And he alone,
I believe, we know something of their value, but he alone
knows their true value, the true value of these blessings in Christ. Perhaps we'll know more when
we go to glory, to eternity, and are with him. Perhaps we'll
know more of what they really are, these blessings, spiritual
blessings, in heavenly places, in Christ. And they're spiritual,
they're not temporal, they're not of this realm of time and
space. They're spiritual, they're eternal,
they're independent of temporal blessings. Beware of those that
would ever get you to measure your spiritual state or the state
of your church by temporal measures. Oh, how many people do you have
coming? And what about this situation? What about that? Oh, all of these
earthly, worldly, material things are indicating that God is not
pleased with you and is not blessing you. Oh, we heard a good message
by Todd some year or two ago. You know the true mark of blessing,
it doesn't matter how many people there are, it is the true gospel
of his grace. Proclaimed and loved and known
among you. That's the true mark of blessing
from God upon his people. He'll take care of numbers, he'll
take care of what's going on outside, but that's the true
blessing is the truth of the light of the knowledge of God
in the face of Jesus Christ clearly set before us in his word and
through that which is preached. That's the important thing. And
they're appropriated by faith, all of these things, according
as he has chosen us, verse 4, in him, before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. These blessings, they're rooted
in eternity, outside of time, but appropriated, taken on board
by faith, which is his gift, as we saw in chapter 2. Blessings
rooted in eternity, all flowing, verse four, consequentially from
the election of God. Now you say I don't understand
election. Well I hope you're not expecting an explanation
from me because neither do I. But all I know is this, that
God who rules over everything has said that he chooses a people
in Christ. And it is in Christ, just as
he has chosen us in him, in Christ, before the foundation of the
world. He didn't choose us outside of or irrespective of Christ. He didn't choose people and say,
right, I'll have that one and I'll have... He put his people
in Christ. representatively as the federal
head of those people he put them in Christ that they might be
judged in Christ that they might for eternity and justice that
everything might be reckoned in Christ he put his people in
Christ before the beginning of time and it was outside of time
not due to anything that he saw oh these people would be more
likely I once heard a man say I understand election, he said.
What it really means is this. Who will God choose? God will
choose whoever will choose him. Well, sorry, that immediately
turns sovereign grace absolutely on its head. You know what I
mean, don't you? Absolutely turns it on its head. That's the choice
of man, determining the choice of God. And so who is God? The
man who chooses is God. That's not what the scripture
teaches. God chooses by sovereign grace. And we may not understand
it, but we'll worship and praise him for it in eternity. And we
must learn to worship and praise him for it now, if we're truly
his. To bow to what he has said. In
Christ, before the beginning of time, he chose a people for
no other reason, no other reason, than if he was pleased in his
sovereign will to be gracious to them. It's before the beginning
of time, beloved, bound to give thanks to God for you, brethren,
beloved of God, for God hath from the beginning chosen you
unto salvation through sanctification of the spirit, setting apart
of the spirit, which then results in your belief of the truth.
And so that Christ becomes to his people By this choice, which
then is worked out in time, Christ becomes to his people wisdom
from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,
and everything that we need as the people of God to look to
him, to follow him, to believe him. And it's unconditioned,
it's all driven by grace alone and by love. But, and I'm going
to skip some because time is well gone, but I'm going to skip
some now and we might come back to it next week, but I don't
want to move on to the next thing without covering this. It's to
the praise of the glory of His grace, and then in verse 7, now
come here with me now, in whom we have redemption through His
blood. the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his
grace. We are predestined to be adopted as children by Jesus
Christ to himself. Adoption means that you get all
of the legal benefits and protection and care of natural-born children
in the family. Adoption of children means all
of those things become yours through that process of legal
adoption. All of those benefits become yours, and it's in Christ,
according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of
the glory of his grace. Show me your glory, said Moses.
I will show you my glory and my goodness. I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. Exodus 33, 18 or thereabouts.
said God to Moses. This is my greatest glory. He
could have shown earthquake, wind, and fire, but he showed
him this. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. He is
the potter. Creation is the clay. He does
with it as he wills. So it's to the praise of the
glory of his grace that By it, he's made us accepted, accepted
with him, accepted in justice, accepted in eternity, in the
Beloved, which is Christ. The acceptance is not in anything
we are or do, but all in the Beloved. And in that same Beloved,
the Lord Jesus Christ, we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins. It's not without a price. These
blessings of God are not without a price. To His people, to those
who believe, it is without a price. Isaiah 55 verse 1, Ho, everyone
that thirsts. Come to the waters, he that has
no money. Come, buy, eat. Come, buy wine
and milk, without money and without price. Revelation 22, 17, take
of the water of life freely. not without any cost or price.
Free. Salvation is free to those who
are the recipients of salvation. Free grace to his people. Free
grace, but not without immense cost to God. redemption's price. If you read Leviticus 25, you'll
read all about the year of jubilee, the seven sevens, 49 years, and
then the 50th year was the year of jubilee, and in the year of
jubilee there are all the laws about that which is owed being
cancelled, and the property returning to its original owner, and all
of those things, and the laws of slavery, and the setting free
of the slaves. That's all there. And in the
slave market, as it were, in the slave market, They used to
come to buy slaves and there'd be slaves put on, just like there
are in auctions these days, except it's cars and houses and furniture
and stuff like that, but there'd be slaves. And there's one standing
there, you've probably heard this before, there's one standing
there who has been a slave and has been under the rule and government
of a tyrant and somebody comes forward to buy that slave, not
for the purpose of that slave being his slave, but for the
purpose of setting that slave free. And he steps forward and
pays the price. Pays the price of the freedom.
The price is the redemption price, the buyback price, the freedom
price. He pays that price to set that
slave free. That that slave might go free,
but the slaves that are set free say this, I love my master so
much who has freed me that I want to be a bondservant and the ear
is pierced with the awl on the doorpost. And so Paul says a
bondservant of Jesus Christ. He says we are free in Christ
but I'm glad to be a bondservant of Jesus Christ because to be
his servant is to be free indeed. If the Son shall make you free,
you shall be free indeed. Free from the condemnation of
law. Who shall free me from the body
of this death? says Paul at the end of Romans
7. I thank God through Christ Jesus. There is therefore now
no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus because I
am free from the law of sin and death. I am free from it. My
sins have been paid and pardoned. Jeremiah chapter 50 verse 20. In those days, and in that time
says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel, and you remember before
I showed you who Israel were, it's the church of God. It's
the people of God in all ages. The elect of God in this world
called out. under the sound of the gospel
of His grace. The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for. No
doubt Satan is dying to find the iniquity of Israel, that
it can be laid to their account. And there shall be none. And
the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found, for I will pardon
them whom I reserve. God says I will pardon the people
that I've chosen from before the beginning of time. We saw
in John chapters 18 and 19 in recent weeks the dark night that,
as the hymn puts it, the dark night that the Lord passed through
ere he found his sheep that was lost. We saw there the dreadful
cup of the wrath of God that he drained in paying every penny
of redemption's price for his people. Every penny, legally,
you know? It always amuses me. I remember the time we paid our
mortgage off, and I remember thinking, well, it's so close
now, surely the bank's going to say, oh, it's all right, doesn't
matter. No, sorry, the day it came to be paid off it was something
like there was £349.52. £349.50 wouldn't have done, there
still would have been a two pence debt outstanding. They wanted
every last penny and so does the justice of God and quite
rightly so. But Christ has paid the price of his people. He's
paid every penny of redemption's price so that God's justice might
proclaim this. Job 33 and verse 24, then he
is gracious unto him and says, this is the object of the wrath
of God, the one deserving the wrath of God. He says, deliver
him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom and having
paid the price in full, we have Verse seven, the forgiveness
of sins. We have pardon because they're
blotted out. Isaiah 44, 22, I have blotted
out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins. Return
unto me for I have redeemed thee. Blessed, says verse three, blessed
Be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
What do you say in response to that? Hallelujah. Praise God. It is well with my soul. Is it
well with yours? Amen.