I want you to turn back in your
Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6, 4, if you will. Ephesians 4. If you don't have your Bible,
you can use your pastor's commentary. It's quite interesting. Rick
was making mention of a picture of the saints because I've been
contemplating that for the last two weeks. I was with my mother a couple of weeks
ago. My brother, who happens to be with us today, his kidneys
went out. And so me and my mother were
dealing with a dilemma. And I'm sure some of you know
that particular dilemma. But God spared my brother. And
I had taken my mother home. And I hadn't been to her house
in a long time. Yeah, that's wrong, but that's
how that is. And as I was going up the stairs,
she has a picture on the wall right as you reach the top of
the stairs. And you would think that a picture about 8 by 12,
you would think that the picture would be a picture of her family,
you know, her sons. She has three sons. you know,
it would have been a picture of my father or maybe, uh, and
some of, you know, my father passed away several years ago.
Um, and maybe she would have the grandchildren and I know
she's on the brink of having grand, uh, great grandchildren
here in the future. Um, so she's blessed, but the
picture was not a picture of my mom or us. It was a picture
of our first baptism. Grace Bible Church was started
13 years ago. We had about 30, 35 people at
the time. And we had our first baptism
at the beach in Alameda. That was cool, I liked it. The folks that got baptized didn't,
it was cold that morning. But you know, you're happy, you're
new in the Lord and you're getting baptized. And so it don't matter
if you're getting baptized in an ice box, you know. But as
I looked at that picture, two things were remarkable to me.
The first is that the core and nucleus of the believers who
helped start Grace Bible Church that were in that picture, 90%
of them are here right now. Oh, we looked a whole lot better
13 years ago. Mike, we were young. Little Mikey
was like, I don't know, about eight, nine years old, 12 maybe.
And the kids was little. And I just looked at the picture
and said, man, we looked like little kids back then. That wasn't
but 13 years ago. And it was a delightful memory
of how quickly time goes by. But it's also a marvelous testimony
as to God's faithfulness in doing something that he said he would
do, which was part of his eternal counsel, of which I want to,
I hope, stir your thoughts and help you understand the richness
and the beauty and the seriousness and the profundity of what God
conceived in eternity past and is bringing to pass every day
in this world right now, and that is a people for his own
namesake, who are called to the praise of the glory of his sovereign
grace, having redeemed us from iniquity and saved us by his
shed blood. That's what God is doing. That's
what God has purpose to do. And that's what God is doing
right now. If I can get anything across to you today, as we deal
with our message, I want you to understand that there is one
primary thing that God has purpose to do even before creating this
universe. And that is to have a church,
which is called his bride, who will be with him for all eternity. Everything else in this world
is merely a scaffolding by which this eternal purpose is accomplished. When a man or a woman understands
what God has done and purpose to do and is doing in the salvation
of sinners, you will highly prize the work of God raising up a
called out people for his own namesake. You'll understand something
about the importance of the church of Jesus Christ, the body of
believers, the ministry of the gospel, that one entity that
God authorized and ordained by which he would get praise to
his great and glorious name. When we sang the hymn, there
is a fountain filled with blood. I wonder, I wonder, do you understand
the importance and significance of those lines that are set forth? There is a fountain filled with
blood was written over a hundred years ago. The concept goes all
the way back to the beginning of time. And I'm here to tell
you right now, that fountain is still full. It's still full,
full of blood. for guilty sinners. If God would
ever show you the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and show you
the perfections of Christ and the way into his presence, you'll
say there's a fountain. There's a fountain filled with
blood flowing from Emmanuel's vein. Sinners plunge beneath
that flood, lose all their guilty stain. Isn't that good? Lose
all their guilty stain. Sinners lose all their guilty
stains. Lose it all. Isn't there something
you want to lose? Don't you want to lose your sins?
In the person of Christ you can. The title of our message today
is the unity of the spirit. Do you see that in your bulletin?
The unity of the spirit. the unity of the Spirit. The
book of Ephesians is our text. We'll be getting to chapter 4,
but if you follow me in your outlines, I want you to think
with me for a moment what is going on. Now, the book of Ephesians,
a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful masterpiece of divine theology. I call it a masterpiece because
the book gives us a crystal clear picture, a brilliant picture
of the sovereignty of God the salvation of sinners the book
of Ephesians gives us a very very clear picture of what the
Spirit of God is doing as he brings men and women into the
body of Christ and what Paul does in the book of Ephesians
is help us help us who are time-bound creatures to understand things
that go on above that is in heavenly places and things that have taken
place before, that is before the world began. This is where
Paul starts when he opens up Ephesians. He starts above and
he starts before. What a place to start. He starts
above everything, above everything, and he starts before. He starts
where God is. See, you and I think that everything
starts with us, but I'm here to tell you it all starts with
God. He's starting with God and then he's talking about things
that take place before the world began. This is how he addresses
the epistle of the Ephesians. And if you have your outline,
I want you to look at our first point in the epistle of the Ephesians. It has to do with the privileges
of the believer. and God's eternal purpose. Chapter
one, verse three of Ephesians. If you have your Bibles, will
you notice how Paul opens up after addressing his call by
the will of God as an apostle? He says, blessed be the God and
father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see that? Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what is he teaching
right now? In our theology class, we dealt with a particular doctrine
that addresses this point. What do we call that in theology?
Paterology, isn't that right? Paterology, the fatherhood of
God. Paul opens up always acknowledging
the first cause of everything. God is the first cause of everything.
And God, our father, is the reason why we exist today. And God,
our father, is the reason why you and I have been born again
today. And when Paul opens up, he's dealing with the first cause
because he's elated to talk to the church at emphasis about
what God has showed him when he was called up to the third
heavens. See, he knows something about the beauty and glory of
this thing called the church. Listen to it. He says, blessed
be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who have blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. Do you understand the import
of that statement? Listen to what he said. He says,
blessed be God. First of all, he's blessing the
father. Do you know what that means to bless the father? You
know, you bless the father when you remember how good God has
been to you. Isn't that right? You bless him and you thank him
and you talk about him when you are reminded of God's glory and
God's goodness and God's favor in your life. Isn't that right?
It's easy to bless God when you realize that God has blessed
you. And the way Paul opens up is by saying, blessed be God.
See, he's already full of the spirit. And he's already preaching
before he gets started preaching. And he's saying, bless it be
God who hath blessed us. God's already blessed us. We've
already been blessed. It's in the past tense. He hath
blessed who? Us. I'm going to talk about the
us in a minute. But if you in on the us, you've
been blessed. God hath blessed us. Now I want
to talk about the nature of those blessings and the sphere of those
blessings because they aren't blessings like we usually talk
about in church. He says he has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings. Now, children of God, when you
use the word all in relationship to God, you're using a big word.
Because God has blessed us with all of his spiritual blessings. Pastor, what are they? Well,
first, they're in heavenly places. And they have their spirit in
the person of Christ. And they are spiritual blessings.
They are spiritual blessings. The persons are people who have
been blessed by God the Father, who himself is blessed, have
been blessed with spiritual blessings. Now we've been talking about
this in our theology class too. The Holy Spirit takes spiritual
things and he communicates spiritual things to spiritual people. Isn't that right? What that means
is when we go to talking about spiritual blessings, only spiritual
people are interested in what I'm talking about. Now, let me
talk about it a little bit. I'm not going to unpack it, but
some of the spiritual blessings that God had blessed us with,
which are in the book of Ephesians are first of all, with the glorious,
glorious purpose of his electing love. Do you know God had elected
a people for himself from eternity to eternity? Do you know that
if you're one of God's elect, guess what? That's a spiritual
blessing. Will you think about it for a moment with me? Before
you had a being, God thought about you. Before this world
began, God purposed you. Before there was anything in
the universe besides the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
God had conceived of a hell-bound sinner like you to be with him
for all eternity. Isn't that a marvelous spiritual
blessing? to be elect, to be chosen of
God, to be one of that number, to be called by God, to be loved
by God, to be drawn by God, to be predestined according to his
marvelous grace is a marvelous, marvelous, marvelous spiritual
blessing. I'll tell you why, because not
everybody's hearing the voice of God. Not everybody's hearing
this sweet message of redemption. Not everybody is even concerned
about their eternity bound soul. But some of us have been. Am
I making some sense? Some of us remember the days
when we were walking in darkness and in blackness and in sinfulness
and all of a sudden the light broke in on our darkness and
God spoke to us. Do you remember that day? God
began to speak to us. Now he was speaking in tongues
while as yet we were lost. Is that right? I told you he
sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. Cause you were blind, not God. You were blind and your
heart was hearted and you were a rebel against the sovereign
God. And you had your fist in God's face. Am I telling the
truth? You live like hell and you loved it. Not only were you
walking in darkness, but you and I were darkness itself. That's
what Ephesians chapter 4 and 5 says. We were darkness itself.
And God in his mercy and in his grace pierced your heart with
his blistering light and shined in your heart to give you the
glory, the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
He revealed in your heart his love to you in the person of
Christ. Do you remember that day? Your
life was forever changed. He put the handcuffs of grace
on you and start towing you in. You remember that? He started
towing you in. You were fighting and you were
kicking and bucking, but every time you were fighting and kicking
and bucking, God reached down and kissed you with one of his
divine truths. Broke your heart, didn't he?
Broke your heart. See, this is what we call sovereign
grace. When God gets a hold to a sinner,
sovereign grace, a man or woman upon whom God has put his mark,
they're doomed. for glory. They can't get away
from God. Are you hearing me? Doomed for
glory. God's going to hunt you down
and bring you in because God can't lie. Isn't that right? And we found out he can't fail
either. Isn't that right? And he ain't changing. He's going
to have a people for himself. And I'm glad I'm one of them,
aren't you? I'm so glad I'm one of them. I'm so glad I'm a Mephibosheth. Have you ever heard about Mephibosheth?
Oh, Mephibosheth, he had a death warrant under him. He was Saul's
grandson. He was Jonathan's son. And God
had wiped out the whole line of Saul. Mephibosheth ran with
the nurse and he was crippled in the process. He was damned
and he was crippled and he was under judgment. But because of
a covenant that David had with Jonathan, he spared Mephibosheth. That's what happened to you.
And God and David fetched Mephibosheth and brought him home. And that's
what he's done for some of us. I want you to understand this
God who is glorious in his persons chose to elect unacceptable,
hell-bound sinners like you and me. Just on that point alone,
you ought to be thanking God every day. Not only did he choose
us, this is some of the spiritual blessing, but then he redeemed
us. He redeemed us by his blood.
You know what that means? We were slaves of sin, slaves
of Satan, slaves in the prison house of sin. And God had to
buy us back. How condescending on the part
of God. He loved us so much that he purchased
us off the slave block with his own blood. It's called redemption. That is the forgiveness of sins.
Not only is that a spiritual blessing for sinners who know
what it means to be bound by the change of their sin. Do you
know what I'm talking about? Do you know that time when you
couldn't help but do evil? There was nothing in you to do
but evil. You couldn't help but lie and
cheat and steal and connive. That's all you and I were. Am
I making some sense? And then God in his mercy broke
the chains and let you know he purchased you with his own blood. He bought you with his own son. You became his. That's a spiritual
blessing. And then the Bible also tells
us not only did He redeem us, but He also reconciled us. Do you know what that means?
He changed the hostility between us. I tell folk all the time,
until a man or woman is born again, they hate God. Am I telling
the truth? You hate God until you're born
again. Now, you might not say it, it's just true. You hate
God. You hate everything about the true and the living God.
Every time the true and the living God talks, It just angst you. Because the true and the living
God is sovereign and he's authoritative. And he has a right to tell you
what to do. And you know, you and I don't like that while we
haven't been saved. Am I making some sense? And the
sovereign God speaking to you in your alienation and in your
hostility, you fight against it. That's why you hate the preaching
of the gospel, because the preaching of the gospel tells you you deserve
the wrath of God and God who is holy deserves to bring you
under that wrath. But then when God saves you and
he redeems you and he breaks that bondage, you know what he
does? He removes the hostility by changing your heart. There
was a day when you hated him. And then the next day you found
that you were in love with Jesus Christ. How could that be? The
Bible tells me that God took out that stony heart, put in
a heart of flesh, wrote his laws on you. You know, it would be
cool if you could take that computer chip out, that thing that's sending
you to hell right now and put in a whole brand new chip. That's
what it means to be born again. That's what it means to be born
again. And instead of hiding from God, putting on the fig
leaves of your self-righteousness, going to church and putting on
the front, now you can really worship God from the heart because
the enmity is removed. Am I making some sense? Because
the enmity is removed. And see, what I'm talking about
has nothing to do with church polity or church form or church
structure. This has all to do with the realities
of the gospel. This has all to do with your
heart, where you stand with God right now. And so if you should
ever wake up and find yourself comfortable in the presence of
his holiness, comfortable in the presence of his holiness.
God has fitted you for that. Do you understand that? Let me
see if I can help you with that. Go back to our text, show you
another thing that it says in our outline. Wonderful. Point
number two, God and his mercy have prepared us for fellowship
with him. Do you see that in your outline?
Point number two, God has prepared us for fellowship with him. What
do you mean? Look over at verse six. Are we
there? I'm gonna start at verse four
and go through. He, that is God, having predestined
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, here's the reason why he adopted
us. I'll talk about this in a moment.
And here's the reason why he brought us into his own presence,
according to the good pleasure of his will, in order that it
might be to the praise of the glory of his grace. Do you see
that? He hath made us. We didn't make ourselves anything.
God made us acceptable. You better think about that for
a moment. You and I, from the time we were born, all the life
we lived prior to God doing something for us were totally unacceptable. We were totally unacceptable.
We were unacceptable in our thinking, We were unacceptable in our actions. We were unacceptable in the whole
of our... There was nothing about you and me outside of Christ
that was acceptable to God. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Nothing, nothing. The human race apart from Christ
is totally obnoxious to God. Everything about us by nature
is sin. Our thoughts are sinful, our
motives are sinful, our deeds are sinful. In the eyes of God's
holiness, you and I are a stench in his nostril. And it's not
possible for the one of us or all of us together to ever stand
in God's presence until he does something for us to make us acceptable. The text says, God in his mercy
made us acceptable in such a manner that it would redound to the
praise of the glory of his grace by us. We would praise him for
making us acceptable. The word acceptable is a Greek
term that is used only twice in the New Testament and it's
used uniquely in the Gospel of Luke chapter 1 Verse 27 and 28,
I want you to turn there because I want you to see this. What
does it mean to be made acceptable in the sight of God? How is it
that God makes it whereby you and I who are unacceptable people... unacceptable by all divine standards,
now we are acceptable with God. I hope to be able to explain
this just a little bit as we go on. I'm in Luke chapter 1.
Do you remember that period of time in Israel's history where
God began to visit them after 400 years? by the angel speaking
to Mary about the fact that she would bring forth a man-child
and they would call that man-child Jesus because he would save his
people from his sins. Do you guys remember that? We
talk about this at Christmas or we talk about it at Easter.
I want you to hear these words as I read them. And I want you,
child of God, listen to me. I want you to put yourself in
the place of Mary. If you do, then you will begin
to understand what it means to be made acceptable. Now, Mary
is a virgin and Mary is married to Joseph. But Mary is utterly
and totally ignorant of what God is doing. And the angel comes
and here's what he says over in verse twenty. Hey, now let me start back at
verse 26. Thus said, thus hath the Lord dealt with me, this
is Mary talking, in the days wherein he looked upon me to
take away my reproach among men. And it goes on to say in verse
26, and in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a city in Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin. Do you see that?
She was espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house
of David. And the virgin's name was Mary,
verse 28. And the angel came in unto her
and said, hail. That ain't H-E-L-L. That's for
those that don't have your Bible. Hail, H-I-L, H-I-I-H-A-I-L. It's a Greek word that means
to rejoice exceedingly. Now he's, the angel is telling
Mary to rejoice exceedingly even before he explains to her the
reason why. He must be happy. You know, a
person is happy when they say rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, before
they tell you what to rejoice in. I want you to see what he's
telling her to rejoice in. This is marvelous. And the angel
came in unto her and said, hail, you are highly favored. Got it? That's our Greek word.
made acceptable. Hail, rejoice Mary, you have
been made highly favored and acceptable before God. Let's drop all the cell phones,
God's not calling us today, please. Hail, you are highly favored
of God. Now when you think about that
for a moment, I know in our religious circles, you hear that phrase
quoted all the time, I'm highly favored. Do you know what that
means? Do you know what that means?
Can I tell you what that means? It means that God has marked
you out from eternity with no cause in yourself. And when he
marked you out, you were barren and unfruitful and you were a
sinner, hell bound sinner. And God purposed to make you
acceptable so that he could have fellowship with you. God did
that for Mary in such a way that is depicted by her not only being
visited by the angel, but him telling her that she would conceive
and her conception would be her bringing forth the son of God.
She was highly favored in that she was allowed to be part of
God's eternal purpose and brought into intimate contact with the
true and the living God. That's what it means to be highly
favored. Are you hearing what I'm saying? To be highly favored
is for God to purpose, to bring you into proximity with him so
that you can partake of that which most pleases God. And that is the glory of his
son. Think about it for a moment.
She was barren. She was about to be married. She wasn't married.
She was a virgin. She was a young girl. And the
angels telling her, not only is she going to be married, but
she's going to be with child and she's going to bring forth
that child. And that child is going to be God himself. That's
highly favored, isn't it? That's highly favored. Can I
make a larger application? That's precisely what God does
for and in every one of God's people. Christ in you, the hope
of glory, is the reason why you're highly favored of God. Are you
hearing me? The Greek word is e-ka-ri-to-an. The root word is karis, from
which we get the term grace or gift. Both words apply because
the gift is a gift of grace. When God pours his grace out
upon you, he not only does something for you, he does something in
you. He has to do something in you
in order for you to be qualified to have fellowship with him.
He has to birth in you and me his own self in order for him
to have fellowship with himself through us. I know that sounded
crazy, but it's true. God loves fellowshipping with
himself. And in order for him to fellowship
with me, he has to fellowship with himself in me. That's the
mystery of the gospel. Christ in you, the hope of glory,
not only in me, all about me. When the phrase says he has made
us accepted in the beloved, what he effectually has done is eradicated
any obstacle that would cause his holiness to abhor anything
about me so as to reject me. God removed every possible obstacle
that would hinder him from having fellowship with you. Am I making
some sense now? He made us accepted in the beloved. That means he clothed us in his
son's righteousness so as to look at us. And when he looks
at us, all he sees is his son. That's what it means to be made
acceptable. You better rejoice in that. I was thinking about
the account of Esau and Jacob. You guys remember those two?
They were loving twins, weren't they? Esau was the firstborn, wasn't
he? Jacob was the secondborn. Now they were twins, right? Esau
was a mighty hunter. Now watch this. And his daddy
loved him. Isaac loved him some Esau. But Jacob's mama wanted Jacob
to have the birthright. So she told Jacob to fix daddy
the pot of gumbo because daddy liked gumbo, right? You can put
in there anything you want to, for me it's gumbo. But in order
for this scheme of Rebecca to pass, she had to tell her son
that he had to put on his brother's garments. He had to appear to
be like his brother. He had to become hairy like his
brother. He had to be covered over with
the wild scent of the field like his brother. So when he went
into the presence of his father, Genesis chapter 25 and 26 tells
us that Isaac heard his voice. He says, boy, you sound so much
like Jacob, but you smell like, and you feel like my son Esau. And because Jacob saw Esau, Isaac
saw Esau and Jacob, guess what? He blessed him. And that's the
picture that we have of you and me being accepted in the beloved. Because God sees Christ, he has
blessed us. even though in ourselves we are
nothing but a conniving, tricking, sneaky, tricky, sneaky. That's what the word Jacob means.
Did you know that? Tricky, sneaky, sneaky, tricky. God accepts us
for Christ's sake. Am I making some sense? And God
accepts us for Christ's sake because that's the only way God
can accept us. I was talking to us about this
on Friday, this humanistic ideology that runs through the church
about how much God just loves you. God loves you. God loves nothing about you directly. There is nothing about you and
me directly for God to love. God loves his son and God loves
us in his son. Am I making some sense? As soon
as you get out of his son, I guarantee you, you will feel the wrath
of God. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And
the Bible tells us in our text, Ephesians chapter one, verse
six, we have been made accepted, where? In the beloved. You better get that preposition
right. Only in Christ are we accepted. And the phrase beloved
underscores how much the father loves the son. Isn't that good? That's one of those spiritual
blessings. Please hold on to that. Don't ever make yourself
anything outside of Christ. The next point I want you to
see, He has prepared us for fellowship with Him by placing us in His
Son, by gracing us, by gifting us, so that we who are unacceptable
in ourselves have been made acceptable in and through the only one who
is acceptable with God. But thirdly, not only has God
prepared us for fellowship, and I love fellowshipping with God,
don't you? love talking to God. I love hearing from God. I love
God's providence and actions in my life. I love God's chastening
hand. I do. It's sweet. It hurts but
it's sweet. I love everything about God.
I love everything about God because I remember a time I didn't know
nothing about God. Not a thing and what I thought
I knew was a lie. And when God began to reveal
the truth to me, it blew me away. This perfect This perfect specimen
of absolute holiness would reveal himself to me in the person of
his son. Not only has God qualified us
to enter into fellowship with him, Saint, but he has preserved
us. Look at verse 13. Go back to
Ephesians 1 verse 13. Look at it. This is wonderful.
Ephesians 1 13. You need to rejoice in this because
this is the only reason you and I get in the glory. Verse 13.
The Bible says in verse 12 that we should be to the praise of
the glory of his grace who first trusted in Christ in whom that
is Christ. You also trusted after that you
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. You
guys got that? That's the mechanism by which
we enter into faith. The word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation. Let me make a caveat there. God
doesn't save through lies. No one is saved in false religion. misinterpretation of the person
and work of Jesus Christ can never save you. You and I are
saved only through the word of truth. That is the gospel of
our salvation. Am I making some sense? Now watch
what he does after he saves us through the word of truth. In
whom also after you believed you were what? Sealed. God had to seal you. God had
to seal you. God had to seal you. Because
if God didn't seal you, you'd corrupt. Am I making some sense? God had to seal you. Isn't God
smart? God had to seal you. Now I just wanna make two applications
of sealing here because this is critical. I've already been
dealing with our Louisiana and Texas style sealing of the, you
know, you're sealing the apricots and the peaches. You know, we
had canned peaches in the country, actually jarred peaches and jarred
prunes and jarred this, and we understood how it goes. You cook
it, you boil it, and you prepare it just right. You put it in
there, you got your top with the lid on it, and when everything
is right, that lid goes boop, and it's sealed, and it's good
to go for a long time. That is a form of sealing. The
word seal here in our Greek language actually means to authenticate.
To authenticate. It's a term that's used for the
magistrates and the kings. They always carried a signet
or a seal. And whenever anything was stamped with that seal, it
meant that that was the king's property. Every believer is the
king's property. And what that means is the whole
world better watch out what you do with the king's property.
Am I making some sense? See when the king's property
is to be shipped from one place to another, he seals it and the
post office does the best job it can to get that package from
point A to point B, what? Safely. any marring, any renting,
any distorting, then they got to answer to the king. Am I making
some sense? Listen to me. God saved us to bring us into
his presence, into his glory for all eternity. Between the
day he saved us and the time we get there, we have a journey
to go. And that journey requires us being sealed and protected
in order that we get there safely. That seal is called the spirit
of God. The Spirit of God is what keeps
God's people. He is our tutor. He is our paraclete. He is our seal. Sealed by the
Holy Ghost. Sealed from all of the assaults
and all of the attacks and all of the battles on the outside.
From all of the enemy, all of his schemes, all of his plans
to destroy. It's interesting. Several of
you are going to be getting baptized here in a few moments. I love
it. I love these terms of baptism,
but I'm here to tell those of you who are about to be baptized,
when you get out of that water, all hell's gonna break loose.
Those of you who have been baptized, can you testify to that? All
hell's gonna break loose. Man, we didn't baptize a lot
of y'all. Am I telling the truth? All hell's gonna break loose
because see, the goal of the devil is to see if there's some
authenticity to your testimony, whether or not you are really
genuinely trusting Christ. We're gonna find out now. Since
you openly and publicly are saying you love Jesus, we're going to
find out now. We're going to find out now.
We're going to find out two things. How committed you are to trusting
him with everything in you and whether or not God on his throne
is going to do all he needs to do to save you from the devil,
because that's how it goes. That's how it goes. and God seals
us so that we can make it through. The second part of that sealing
is a work that God does subjectively. The Bible says that you and I
have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of promise. That's what the text says. And
the spirit of promise is what God does for us. To seal into
our minds and into our hearts that everything that God has
said he's gonna do for us, he will do. In other words, he gave
us the Spirit of God in order to continue to conform us until
the day of Jesus Christ. Not only conform us, but confirm
us to the day of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of promise is God's
pledge. It's God's pledge. Didn't we
talk about this last week? How condescending God is to promise
you. All God has to do is tell you
he's going to do something for you, and it's good. But for him
to promise us, and then swear by an oath that he's going to
do it? That's remarkable. For a God who can't lie, can't
change, can't fail, whatever he says he brings to pass. And
yet for his people like you and me, you know what he does? He
says, I promise you, I promise you, I promise you everything
I have determined to do for you in my eternal counsel will indeed
come to pass. Saints, you might think that's
strange, but hear me, there are days when you need God to tell
you about his promises all over again. Am I telling the truth?
There are days when you need the Spirit of God to reaffirm
those virtues and those overtures of love for you that came to
you when you first heard the gospel. You need Him to tell
you again and again and again and again, I love you and I'm
with you and I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you.
Then you need Him to tell you, I know what I'm doing. You need
Him to tell you, you need to just hold on. Don't worry. And if you do worry, trust me,
I don't mind you being afraid, but trust me while you're afraid,
because I know what I'm doing. That's the goal of the promissory
note called the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the down payment
to the full inheritance of which eye has not seen, ear has not
heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man. Those
things that God is doing and will do for those that love him.
But the Holy Ghost is there to let you know, listen, I'm big.
I'm huge. The Spirit of God is huge in
the life of the believer, isn't he? He's huge He's huge when
your faith is so low and so feeble and so weak Right at the right
time the Holy Ghost just comes and fills you back up to overflowing
This is a miracle of his grace, but that's because he's the promissory
note He's the great quickener. He's the great illuminator. He's
the great advocate. He's the great counselor. He's
the great pedagogue. The Holy Spirit is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. Am I making some sense? Isn't
that what happens? See, now I'm talking to folk who know what
it means to be born again and walking with Christ. Am I not?
And that's his job. Thank God for the third person.
And let me say this as I move on to my next point. If you notice
in chapter 1 verses 1 all the way through verse 13, you are
dealing with the enterprise of all three persons. The father
thought this scheme up. It started in heaven. The son
accomplished that scheme. And the third person is applying
that scheme right now. Do you know what that means?
All three persons are highly interested in your salvation. All three persons collaborated
together in your redemption. There's nothing about what the
father covets that the son doesn't also covet. And there's nothing
about what the son covets that the Holy Ghost does not also
covet. All three persons in the council halls of eternity sat
together. You know, the proverb says, in
the multitude of counselors, there's safety. In the multitude
of these three counselors, there's salvation. All three persons
work in the salvation of God's people. The Father above, the
Son on our behalf, the Holy Ghost within. All three persons are
working to bring us to glory. This is what Paul wants us to
know in the book of Ephesians. It's an amazing thing. And this
is a masterpiece of grace. And you need to think about it.
When you've got the son, you've got the father. And when you've
got the spirit, you've got the son, you've got all three persons. You and I are good to go. I want
to call your attention to the next point. Positioned. Positioned. This will help float your boat
too. Paul made it very plain that when God purposed to save
you and me, he actually positioned us in the person of his son.
order to secure that salvation look at Ephesians chapter 2 I
want to read verses 4 through 6 Develop this and move on but
God who is rich. Do you see that in mercy? For
his great love wherewith he loved us You guys you need to marinate
in and revel in the adjectives of Scripture He's rich in mercy
and he's great in love He's rich in mercy. Do you know what that
means? God is rich in mercy, rich in
mercy. You need that all the days of
your life. You need to know that God is
rich in mercy. Please hold on to that. Some
of you can stop listening to me preach right there, right
there. That's your message. God talking to you right there
for you, you who need mercy. I'm talking to you right there
who need mercy. Understand God is rich in mercy. That means you will never go
to God suing for mercy. And he says, my bank account
is empty. God is not a Murdoch. He's not
a Murdoch, Madoff. It's not his name Madoff. What's
his first name? David Madoff? Is that his name? David Madoff with all the money,
right? Bernard Madoff. I don't care
what his first name is. He made off with all the money.
Folk going now to try to get some of the money. You will never
go to God, sue for mercy, and his bank account is empty. Rich! See, we learned about this in
the Friday study, right? See, you and I have entered into the
fullness, the fullness of God. God is full and God is fat, isn't
he? Fat, that's the work of the Spirit
of God, to bring us into the richness, the richness of his
resources. The sinner that comes to God
and begs for mercy will have a dump truck loaded on him. mercy
you will be overwhelmed you will be flooded with God's mercy it
will break your heart you will be amazed at how abundant his
mercies are when they come into your soul at that time that you
need him am I telling the truth it's amazing how he does it now
all I need is a couple of old saints have been around 50 or
60 years to say amen cuz it's just true you young
believers you you need to know the riches of his mercy and contemplate
the great love wherewith he loved us. The Bible tells us right
here what he did. Listen to it. Not only did he
love us in such a manner as to give us his rich mercy and his
great love, even when we were dead in sins, he quickened, he quickened
us. He quickened us. See, when we
preach the gospel, we preach the gospel of a sovereign God
who does it all from beginning to end. We don't preach a gospel
where God does part of the work and you do part of the work.
That's not the gospel. The gospel is not about God plus you. The
gospel about God all by himself, purposing and determining and
actually doing it. Can you imagine God looking down
on a mass of dead sinners? And in his mercy, quickening
you, quickening you. Quickening you giving you life
Raising you from the dead. That's where it starts with God
quickening you from the dead The hour is coming and now is
when the dead and now what the Bible says John 25 25 when the
dead Shall hear the voice of God and they that hear shall
live The day you heard God's voice God had quickened you he
had raised you from the dead. He had given you life And all
of a sudden God was talking to you and you could understand
what he said You were dead. You were bone dry dead. You wasn't sick. You wasn't misinformed. You wasn't uninformed. You were
dead. No life in you whatsoever. Oh, God
is good at me. Tell the truth about yourself
and tell the truth about God and you'll go to heaven. Even
when you were dead in sins, God quickened us. And this is beautiful.
He quickened us together. I'm going to get into this is
called the unity of the spirit. Do you know when God quickened
one believer, he quickened every believer at the same time? This
is going to blow your mind, but that's OK. If you understand
the gospel, it'll make sense. God quickened all of his people
on the same day he raised his son from the dead. When God raised
Jesus from the dead, He raised from the dead in principle and
in purpose and in position everyone for whom Christ died. This is
why Jesus said, because I live, you shall also live. This is
why He says, I am the resurrection and the life. And if you read
Isaiah 26, 19, Jesus is speaking by the Spirit saying thy dead
men that he's speaking to the father shall live together with
my dead body Shall they live do you know when Christ rose
again from the dead? I rose again from the dead we can really see
that in baptism It's it's amazing because even before I had a being
I was already Positioned in heavenly places in Christ Jesus God could
now see you know why God did that I'll tell you exactly why
God did this because he's smarter than the devil and Smarter than
the devil see the devil can only see the flesh So if I'm already
positioned in glory when my mom and my daddy started twinkling
in each other's eyes And I came about the devil tried to get
my mother to do something to abort me And Even if he would have achieved
that guess where I would have gone immediately to glory in
God amazing Isn't he amazing? Doesn't he know how to overcome
death and sin and the maniacal schemes of the wicked one? For
such are in the kingdom of heaven. So if we should make it out of
the womb, then the devil tries to kill us all the days of our
life, doesn't he? And not if it wasn't the devil, it'd be
us too in our ignorance and our foolishness, right? We live a
life of sin trying to kill ourselves, but God and his purpose has already
positioned me in Christ in heavenly places and I gotta go where I
already am. Am I making some sense? That's
why David said in Psalm 139, you know what, Lord, when I think
about these things, They're just too wonderful for me. They're
way over my bed, over my head. My thoughts about you and how
much you love me, they're innumerable. I can't even count the number.
They're more than the hairs of my head. Listen to me. He says,
your hand is in front of me. Your hand is behind me and you
lay your hand on top of me. You've already gone before me.
You've already taken care of the things behind me and you
hold on to me. Isn't that what David said? See,
David knew something about what I'm talking about. His mother
and his father forsook him. His brothers forsook him. The
king tried to kill him. His own children tried to take
him out. And as David is making his 70 years journey in this
life, he came to understand God's unfailing, predestinating, electing
love of an undeserving sinner in David. David could easily
preach how God chose him, and how God called him, and how God
saved him, and how God kept him, and how God brought him to glory,
and he couldn't care less about what some of these folks think
about, well, where is man's dignity? And where is man's pride? And
where is man's free will? It's nowhere. That's where it
is. It's nowhere. Will you hear me? It's nowhere.
It's nowhere. God does it all. And the gospel
teaches that. And real sinners like me and
a few of you, you know that. And you love it like that, don't
you? Don't you love the idea that you're just going along
for the ride? You know, when you get on the train, you know,
you don't tell a conductor where to go and what to do and when
to stop and how fast to go. You just enjoy the ride. That's
called grace. Better get a hold of that. All
right, we'll go on a little bit more because I want us to see
this. Go on to our next point. Number five, go with me now to
our text in chapter four, verses one through four. I just want
to read this briefly. I'm going to wrap this up and
get into a glorious part of our service. This is called purposed
according to calling, purposed according to calling. I'm going
to read verses one through verse six. And then I'm going to explain
it briefly and shut it down. Listen to verse one. I therefore
the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the
vocation where with you are called since you've been called of God,
act like God's children. That's what he's saying. Now
watch this with all lowliness and meekness with long suffering
and forbearing one another in love. That's how the church ought
to be acting towards one another. You guys got that all lowliness,
meekness, Long-suffering you put up with me. I'll put up with
you That's called forbearing one another and you do it in
love. You guys got that verse 3 now watch this endeavoring
to keep The unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Now I'm
here to tell you you and I don't create unity You and I don't
make unity. I You and I couldn't produce
unity if we want to. Now, this is going to hurt, but
it's true. You don't even have unity in yourself. That's profound, isn't it? My
sister said, wow, I just want to help you with this, because
see, we live in a world that is willing to sell everything
out to produce a false peace and a false unity without Christ. The whole world system is set
up to produce and propagate the idea of peace and unity without
Christ. But when you are fractured in
your own mind, how can you be at unity or at peace with anybody? When you find yourself telling
yourself you're going to do one thing and then you do another,
you're conflicted. How can a conflicted person produce
unity? peace I don't have unity in myself
I don't have peace in myself I'm not at peace with myself
I'm at peace with God and God's at peace with me I'm so at peace
with God when I'm conflicted I just say well that's who I
am but I know God's not conflicted God's one God's one and God's
of one mind God's a one man. Everything he does is linear.
Everything God does is consistent. Everything God does is purpose
and he never conflicts with himself. But you and I conflict all the
time. Don't listen. If someone came to you and said,
I want you to be the one that brings about world peace. Tell
him, no, I'm not the man for the job. None of us are the man
for the job. This is why every time we attempt
this farce, we only make things worse. We only make things worse. And the church of God ought never
to fall prey for trying to accomplish social justice or social peace
apart from Christ and apart from his word and apart from his gospel.
The solution to true peace is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So now when we stop preaching
Christ, you can expect nothing but all hell to break out. Am
I making some sense? Now work in this world, do what
you got to do in this world, but don't put all your eggs in
the basket of this world system. It's going to let you down. It's
going to let you down. I love the book of Ephesians
because it deals with the glory of God, his redemptive scheme,
his absolute phenomenal love for his church, which you ought
to have for the church. You ought to love what God loves.
And then it talks to us about how to live. And then it talks
to us about husbands. And it talks to us about wives.
And it talks to us about families. And I'm here to tell you, the
view of God concerning a successful man or woman or family starts
with God. It goes through Christ and is
accomplished by the Spirit in the context of the church. By
the time you get to chapters 5, 6, you are dealing with the
very practical aspects life on this earth from a Christian perspective. In God's mind, it really only
gets done right through Christ. That's why it's tore up the way
it's tore up because it's outside of Christ. We're always trying
to do everything outside of Jesus. Isn't that right? Oh, I'm gonna
be married outside of Jesus. Alright, I'm telling you that's
a recipe for disaster. Because even in Christ, we're
still struggling. All right, I'll leave that for
another message. The phrase tells us in verse
three, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond
of peace. And he goes on to explain in
verses four through six, will you hear me carefully? The unity
of the spirit. I want you to hear what is called
the unity of the spirit. The unity of the spirit is not
some emotional disposition on the part of God. A unity in the
spirit is not as all holding hands, singing come by y'all. Unity in the spirit is what God
does by his spirit to take sinners from every nation, kindred, tribe
and tongue, every socioeconomic stratus, every mindset, every
disposition, a whole bunch of us eclectic, goofy, sinful people,
and bring us all under the one auspices of his saving grace
in the person of Christ. That's the unifying work of the
Spirit of God. Am I making some sense? Now watch
this. Only the Spirit can do that. Listen to it again. Listen to
it again. Now watch this. There is one
body, verse four, and one spirit, even as you are called in one
hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and father of all who is above all and through all and in you
all. Do you see the unity? The goal
of the spirit is to bring all of God's people into unity with
God through Jesus Christ. And when he does that, you and
I say the same things, we think the same things, we rejoice in
the same things, we love the same thing. I love God the Father,
do you? I love God the Son, do you? I
love God the Holy Ghost, do you? I love redemption by his blood.
I love the forgiveness of sins. I love free grace. I love imputed
righteousness, don't you? I love the justifying work of
Christ on Calvary's tree. I love the doctrine of substitution.
I love this concept of sealing, don't you? I love predestination,
don't you? I love the idea of going to glory,
being with a whole host of sinners from the beginning of time to
the end of world, all because of Jesus. Don't you love that?
I love that. And everybody that's born of
God loves that. If you don't love that, we're not brethren,
we're not unified. That's why Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life, and no one's coming to the Father except through
me. That's the unity I'm talking about you guys got that now what
he goes on to say is this in order to affect this unity Jesus
Christ after having Come down from glory died on Calvary Street
rose again He gave gifts unto the church and he gave what are
called the teaching gifts in this text the teaching gifts
That's what I do. I'm a teacher He gave us the
teaching gifts. And those teaching gifts are
designed to bring about the unity because it's through the preaching
and the teaching of Christ that men and women are brought into
unity and fellowship. And the teaching gifts and the
preaching gifts also conform us into his image. Listen to
the language as I close it out. Here it is, verses 12 through
verse 16. Here it is. For the teaching
gifts are for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of
the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we
all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God this is both numerically and this is also spiritually
it happens as we preach men are taught the gospel and they're
brought into the kingdom of God through the gospel unto a perfect
man who is that perfect man unto the measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ. Do you see how Paul recognizes
that in the person of Christ is all this to be accomplished?
Verse 15, speaking the truth in love, we may grow up into
him. all things which is the head
even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joined together and
compacted by that which every joint supplies according to the
effectual working in every in the measure of every part making
increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love Paul
is speaking about the growth of the physical body coming into
full maturity and as a consequence of the ministry of preaching
and teaching. Now we're getting ready to go
through an exercise and I want you guys to enjoy this and experience
this with us because this is the purpose for which the gospel
is preached. There are some folks here who
are going to become members here in a few moments officially.
They've been with us for a long time and they want to join hands
with us in the cause of the gospel. Several of our members are about
to be baptized. Baptism is not a ceremonial ritualistic
activity. Baptism is not something you
do because you've been forced to do it. Baptism constitutes
five things that are in your outline. They're glorious. God
gave them to us. First of all, baptism, and for
those of you who are getting baptized, you can get dressed
now if you need to. Baptism is a confession. It's a confession. Baptism is a confession of what
you are by nature and what you need By supernature and that
is in terms of God's redeeming grace Matthew chapter 3 verse
6 tells us and John the Baptist was at the River Jordan baptizing
men and women confessing their sins Acknowledging their need
of Jesus Therefore the men and women who are about to be baptized
now will be publicly confessing their the fact that they are
sinners by nature. Are you hearing me? And in need
of salvation. These folks will be confessing
that the Spirit of God has taught them those three major works
that he teaches all his believers. This is John 16, 8. And when
he, the Spirit of truth has come, he will convince the world of
sin. You guys got that? God doesn't
save anything, anyone, but sinners. That's all he says. Until God
has shown you that you are desperately lost sinner, you haven't seen
God's glory. Baptism therefore is a confession
that I am in hell bound sinner and I need Jesus. The second
thing that baptism is, it's an answer of the conscience. See,
this is why baptism has to be preached and taught. It's not
some type of ritualistic mystical ceremony that you do to babies
or ignorant grown folk. Baptism is something that must
be taught when you teach baptism. You are essentially teaching
the gospel Because baptism teaches us about how it is that a sinner
Can be made right with God as he is brought into union with
Jesus Christ his substitute first Peter chapter 3 verses 18 through
21 tells us that baptism is a light figure where unto a Even now,
our conscious is aware that in the same way that Noah and his
eight souls were delivered through water, you and I have been brought
through the judgment, brought through the judgment of God's
wrath out on the other side by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What that means is when the gospel is preached and men and women
see Christ on Calvary's tree, and then they recognize that
he was buried, And that he rose again the third day and is ascended
on high. You know how earlier I said that
we were positioned in heavenly places in Christ? When your conscious
comes to say, yes, the resurrection of Christ has utterly and totally
liberated me from any potential damnation there is. I'm talking
your conscious now. You enter into the waters of
baptism responding to God's message. Will you trust Christ? Am I making
some sense? That means when you go into the
water, you go in because you know what you're doing. The third
thing that baptism teaches us is given to us in Romans chapter
six verses one through three. It teaches us the necessity of
death, burial and resurrection. You and I have to die and we
must die with Christ. If we're going to live with Christ,
when these folks get in the water, they are confessing to you and
to me, that the only way that they can live is that they have
already died with Christ and they were buried with him. This
is the doctrine we call the doctrine of union. They were brought into
union with Christ so that when Christ died, guess who died?
They died. Am I making some sense? And when
Christ rose again, we'll see them come up out of the water.
They also rose again too. That's what they're declaring.
And they're declaring also not only that, but baptism teaches
that you and I have been brought into by the work of the spirit
to the body of Christ. First Corinthians chapter 12
says we all have been baptized by one spirit into the body of
Christ. This is why I've been talking
to you earlier about the church. There's so many people who belittle
the church. and they belittle the purpose
of the church. But I'm not surprised because these same people are
influenced by being belittled or by belittling marriage and
belittling family, which God also made. Am I making some sense? See, the devil loves to belittle
everything that God himself sees important. Don't you fall prey
to that. What seems foolish to the world
is the way that God gets glory. Are you hearing me? Finally,
baptism points to that day when Christ will come and all his
ransomed church will be brought together to be raised from the
dead, to be transformed glorified and live with him forever therefore
when we who are baptized are baptized we're saying I'm looking
for the resurrection my body is dead because of sin but my
soul is alive because of righteousness and I'm waiting for Jesus to
come to take this body and change it and make it like unto his
glorious spiritual body you guys got that we're about to see that
take place now for those of you who are being baptized could
you guys come up front and