If you want to turn with me to
my text this morning, you'll find it in Ephesians chapter
2. At one point, I almost stopped
Wayne this morning to ask him to get on with what he had to
say because he was absolutely preaching my message. I told him, I said, we might
as well go home. In Ephesians chapter 2, 3 verses, 8, 9, and 10. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
8. For by grace are ye saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. The title of my message this
morning is Two Glorious Things About Grace. And the first one
is, Grace Saves Us. Grace saves sinners. Nothing but grace will save a
sinner. By grace ye are saved. What does that mean in Bible
terms, to be saved by grace? What is that salvation that's
of the Lord? What does that mean? I want to
look at that for a few minutes. But the second point is this.
This is something else that's glorious about grace. He tells
us in verse 10 that grace creates us unto good works. It takes a sinner that's dead
in sins, that's never did one good thing in his life for God's
glory and the good of anybody else, and it puts him to doing
that which is good in the eyes of men and God. Two wondrous
things about grace. Paul had been mentioning here
in chapter 1, and I want you to look back there, And he was
telling these Ephesians about the blessings of God that he
had bestowed upon them. And they're amazing blessings. And let's just go through them
just for a minute to see the blessings. He tells them first
of all, and you'll notice this as you read chapter 1 in Ephesians,
that he deals with salvation. He sets forth salvation in eternity
past. It had its beginning in eternity
past, before the world was. God purposed salvation. The whole
scheme of salvation was purposed by God before the world was. And He accomplishes all that
salvation. He deals with eternity that's
to come, the resurrection of His people and the glorification.
The whole scheme of salvation is planned by God. But then he
begins here in verses 3 and verse 4 to tell them that God had personally
chosen them to this salvation. Isn't that amazing? Let me read
it to you again. Wang quoted it twice. But let me read it to you again
in chapter 1. Look at it in verse 3 and verse
4. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And look at verse
4, according as He has chosen us in Him, that is, He chose
us to salvation before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. What a blessing
of grace! that he not only planned and
purposed salvation, but he purposed to save many out of Adam's fallen
race. Every man who will ever be saved
will be saved because God chose him to salvation before he had
a being, before the world ever was. That's amazing, isn't it?
The Bible says, and you quoted it in Psalms, I think, 64 or
5, Blessed is the man whom thou choosest. What a blessing to
be chosen of God. I remember that when the disciples
came to the Lord, the apostles, and they were rejoicing because
the devils were subject to them. Remember that? And what did the
Lord tell them? Don't rejoice in that. But rejoice
in what? that your names are written.
Where are their names written? In heaven. In heaven. Who wrote their names there?
God wrote their names there. In the Lamb's Book of Life. And
when did He do it? Before the world ever was. Isn't
that amazing? What a blessing this is. And then He goes on here in verse
5 and He tells them that God had not only adopted them as
His children, but He predestinated them to that. He set them aside
for that very thing. Look how He says it in verse
5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. This
word predestinate simply means He preordained it. He preordained
it. We talk sometimes about our destiny. Have you found out your destiny? Well, there's such a thing as
destiny and there's such a thing as predestiny. And God predestinated
these people long before the world was to be adopted as His
children. Now, this is one of the most
humbling and glorious things I've ever studied, I think, in
my life. If God come to you, for instance, and He said to
you, and He said about you, I'm going to, He just suddenly said
this, I'm going to adopt Brad as my child. I don't know very
much about it, but I like him, I'm just going to adopt him.
That would be a wonderful thing, wouldn't it? But when He had
an eternity to think about it and examine it, And then he says,
I'm going to do it in time. I'm going to adopt him as my
child. And I'm going to send the Spirit
of my Son into his heart. That's wonderful, isn't it? That's
the blessing of salvation. And he goes on here in verse
6, and he goes to God's motive of purposing to do all of this.
Look what he says again in verse 6. To the praise of the glory
of His grace, wherein He favored us because of His dear Son, the
Beloved. He did all of this for the sake
and the glory of His dear Son. He purposed before time to get
Jesus the Lord a great name in this world. And He's done it,
hasn't He? What do you think of Jesus Christ this morning?
Don't you love Him? Don't you glory in Him? That's
God's purpose all along. He chose you in Christ. He predestinated
you to be His sons in Christ, that Jesus Christ may get all
the glory for your salvation. And Paul here begins to speak
of Christ, and every time he does this, I tell you, his heart
gets so full. He says one thing about he did
this in the Beloved, then he just goes off on the Beloved.
And his heart is full of Jesus Christ, and his mouth is full
of Christ, and his pen is full of Christ. Sometimes go here
and read chapter 1 and look at all the times He mentions the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nouns and pronouns concerning
Him. I counted 57 times in this first chapter the name of the
Triune God was mentioned. 57 times! Look here what He says. He went
on to say here in verse 7, "...in whom we have redemption." through
His blood. Redemption from what? Well, awful
things. What about the curse of the law?
That's something to be redeemed from, isn't it? If a man dies
under the curse of the law, he'll die forever. He's redeemed you,
Paul said, from the curse of the law. He's redeemed you from
the wrath to come. He's redeemed you from sin. Sin
will damn us, won't it? He has redeemed you at a great
cost. What was the cost? The blood
of His own Son. He has redeemed you in whom we
have redemption through His blood. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no redemption. And look what He says right on
below that. The forgiveness of sins. What a blessing this is. All
sin. All sin. Did you hear what Jesus
said to me? They're all taken away. Your
sins are pardoned and now you're free. They're all taken away. I tell you, salvation, brothers
and sisters, isn't worth anything if it doesn't save us from sin.
And could I ask you a personal question this morning? I asked
myself this often. And I don't want you to raise
your hand, but I want you to think about this in your heart.
Has the Lord saved you from sin? Has the Lord Jesus Christ saved
you from sin? I mean, from the guilt of it?
From the power of it? You used to be slaves to sin. It ruled over you. But it don't
anymore? While you struggle with it, you're
not slaves to it? Has He delivered you from the
love of it? Oh, this world loves sin. You
meet people all the time that's in love with their sin. Even
while they say, Oh, I believe in Christ, they love their sin. Has He saved you from your sin?
In whom we have redemption from sin. And has He given you a hope,
a good hope, an earnest hope that soon you're going to be
saved from the very presence of it? You'll be where sin and
sense will never molest you again? Oh, in whom we have redemption,
even the forgiveness of sin. Oh, what a blessing that is.
What a blessing. And here Paul begins in verse
11 to tell them the blessing that awaits them. And what is
it? It's an inheritance. Look at
this. "...in whom also we have obtained
an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him
who works all things after the counsel of his own will." And
he doesn't tell us here what that inheritance is. But Peter
does, doesn't he? Peter says there's an inheritance
laid up for every child of God. It's incorruptible. It's undefiled. And it never fades away and it's
reserved in heaven for you. How would you feel and how do
you think you'll feel on the Day of Judgment when all the
nations from the history of the world are gathered up into heaven
in the very presence of Jesus Christ at His throne before His
feet And He says to you, even you, come you blessed of My Father. Inherit the kingdom. Inherit
the kingdom. You're blessed of My Father.
That's what Paul just said, wasn't it? He hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings. And one of the blessings He's
laid up is in heaven, that eternal inheritance for you. What a blessing
this is. Oh, my soul. Now he goes on and
he tells them how they can know this. How could they possibly
know these blessings that you and I have been talking about
here this morning? Because God had blessed them
with another blessing. Look in verse 13. In whom also
you trusted, you trusted Christ. After that you heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation. and whom also after
that you believed, look at this, you were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. What had happened? The Spirit
of life had come to them and He had given them eternal life.
He had revealed the Savior to them, the source of all life.
God has given to you eternal life, and this life is in His
Son. And how can we know that? The
Spirit bears witness to our hearts, doesn't it? That we're children
of God. That we do indeed have a saving
interest in Jesus Christ. You can't be a Christian without
the Holy Spirit. We can't know God and we can't
know Christ without the Holy Spirit. But when He comes, He
teaches us. that Christ liveth in us. Oh, what a salvation is this!
And we know it because the Holy Spirit reveals this to us. We have the witness in Himself. We have it in ourselves. And
this is the Spirit of promise the Apostle Paul calls Him because
He was promised thousands of years before He ever came. that
as soon as the Son of God came and suffered and died and rose
again and ascended to heaven, He would send him back. And lo
and behold, Paul said, He's been sent to your heart and He sealed
you with a witness that you are indeed one of His, that Christ
liveth in you. What does it mean when we seal
something? When we seal something, it has
a meaning to it. It means something when the Holy
Ghost seals you. Sometimes our government seals
documents it doesn't want anybody to see. They're important, critical
documents that the public is not to see. They're hid from
the eyes of the public until a set time. And they call them
sealed documents. Sometimes if you have something
precious, You seal it. You seal it up in a safe place.
You ladies, you don't seal your ten earrings, do you? You don't
care about them. They're just ten. So what do
you do with them? Well, you'll throw them by your
bed or something or lay them up on a shelf. But I'll tell
you something. You've got precious jewels that's
worth something. What do you do with it? You'll
say, husband, you need to buy me a safe. I don't want to lose
these precious jewels. They're worth something. You
put it in a safe, don't you? You seal it up. I lay my little
wallet, I got a place in the kitchen on the window sill, and
that's where I put my wallet every night. It'd be easy to
see from the outside, just break the window and reach and get
it. But I don't care that much. It don't have anything in there
I can't replace. But you know something? If I had ten million
dollars, it wouldn't be laying on the windowsill. It would be
in a bank vault, sealed up where it's safe. And that's what the
Holy Spirit does. He seals His people. And if you've
got some goods that you want to seal up, like your vegetables
or your fruits, what do you do? You put them in a jug and you
seal them up. And you preserve them, don't
you? That's what it means for the Holy Spirit to seal us. He
preserves us until the date that He's pleased to open us up. And
He says in this very book that the Holy Spirit has sealed you
until the day of redemption. What a blessing this is. Here in verse 14, look at this. Look at this blessing. Which
is the earnest. This Holy Spirit is the earnest
of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession
unto the praise of His glory." This word, earnest, of our inheritance,
earnest, it means a pledge, a part of the purchased money or property
given in advance as security for the rest. I've done that
sometime and lost money. Have you ever went and somebody
had something for sale and they'll say, you give me $100 for earnest
and you come back and pay the $500 later and you give them
$100 for earnest and you never come up with the $500 and you
lose everything. You lose your $100 and you lose
your $500. You lose your property because you didn't have the money
to pay for it. It won't happen that way with
God. If you're here this morning,
brothers and sisters, and God has sent forth the Spirit of
His Son into your heart, crying, Father, Father, that's an earnest
that He is going to redeem something that He has purchased. And what
is it? Your body. And if He was going to damn you,
if He wasn't going to redeem you fully, body as well as your
soul, He would have never given you the Holy Spirit as an earnest.
Oh, that's assurance, isn't it? That's assurance. What a blessing. What a blessing. Now, unless
these Ephesians, these believers, begin to imagine that such a
salvation was earned by them, or merited by them, or deserved
by them in the least, He goes on in chapter 2 to remind them
of the most deplorable condition they were in before the Lord
saved them, before He regenerated them. Now this is so important. He says here in verse 1, look
at their condition. Chapter 2 and verse 1. And you
hath He quickened, He's given life to, who were dead in trespasses
and sin. There's where you were. My goodness. You were dead. You were as dead
as someone is out in the graveyard. Dead in sin. And notice chapter
2. He tells them how they walked,
how they lived in this world. We're in in time past. You walked
according to the course of this world. What is the course of
this world? Hatred against God. This world's
living in rebellion, clergy against God. You just read it. Quoted
it. And what's its end? Judgment. Damnation for this
world. And Paul said, that's the way
you are. But look at this. Who was leading them? According
to the Prince of the power of the air, The devil, Satan, the
spirit that now worketh, not in the children of God, but in
the children of disobedience. That's where you were, he said.
But he doesn't stop there. Look in verse 3. Among also whom
we all had our conversation in time past, in the lust of our
flesh. Paul said you lived in the flesh.
And you fulfilled the desires of the flesh. And somebody might
say, Bruce, I never did fall into that open and profane sin.
I lived a moral life, okay? Let's say that's so. I'll tell
you something, you did do, just as I did, you fulfilled the lust
of the mind. And no man can escape that, can
he? And look at this, and you were by nature, your very nature,
wrathful children. And it's my understanding the
word here doesn't mean the wrath of God was upon them, which in
other places that's taught. But here it said this was the
state of your mind. You were children in whom was
wrath towards God. Your minds were enmity towards
God. Boy, I tell you, such a description
of our state by nature is extremely offensive to this world, isn't
it? It sure is. Why would this apostle
go into such detail about it but to teach them and to teach
us that if God has truly blessed us with His salvation, it must
be by free and sovereign grace alone. without any human merit
or works being added unto it, which we are void of by our very
nature. A dead man is capable of doing
nothing. And a man who is being led around
by Satan, if he does anything, it must be sin and enmity against
God. When he says in our text, by
grace are you saved, He means to teach us that such grace is
uncaused in us. The cause of grace is found in
the giver of grace in God Himself. And you know, brothers and sisters,
there is no salvation. There is absolutely no salvation
but that salvation which is taught us in the Word of God. What I've
been preaching to you this morning about chapter 1, that's the only
salvation there is. That one that's planned by God
and purchased by the Son and executed by the Holy Spirit.
That salvation which is by grace. There is no other salvation. The cause of grace lies wholly
in the Giver Himself. The whole scheme of salvation
from beginning to end is by the grace and cause of God Himself. What is election about? What
is election about? Is it not about God already choosing
who He was going to eternally bless? That's it, isn't it? Is it not about God on His throne
of absolute freedom saying to you and me, salvation is of the
Lord? Salvation is by my grace. It is my gracious will and not
yours. Is it not Him saying that I can
be gracious and pass by, or choose, or I can be just and pass by?
I'm not obligated to give to any. I can choose one or I can
choose many. I'm not obligated to any. If
I say one or many, what is it owing to? Grace. Grace. By grace, You may have noticed as I read
some of these passages, and you can read them here for yourself,
notice the words that He used that become so telling when we
study about His grace. Verse 5, according to the good
pleasure of His will. Verse 6, to the praise of the
glory of His grace. Verse 7, according to the riches
of His grace. Verse 9, according to His own
good pleasure which He purposed in Himself. Verse 11, according
to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel
of His own will. And verse 14, unto the praise
of His grace. It's His grace. It's His grace. And He doesn't give it. It doesn't rise and give it to
any man because of anything he sees in that person. The cause of grace is found in
the heart of God Himself. By grace are you saved. And you
can notice this. This grace that saves us is not
only uncaused in us, but it's unconditional. Not only does
it not come because it has some debts to pay, but also it comes
without having to wait for any conditions to be fulfilled on
our part before it can act. I love this about grace. God
is not up there in heaven saying, I'm willing to do and I desire
to do it, but I can't until I first see you meet some condition.
I'm waiting on you. To do this, I'm waiting on you
to do that. And we have this plainly taught
here in verse 5. When did the Lord save us? When
did He come and give us life? Even when, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. You
may be here this morning, dear soul, and you may be dead in
your sins. Your soul may be as corrupt by
sin as that body that's laid in the cemetery for ten years.
As corrupt as you can be. But I'm telling you this this
morning, if God has purposed to save you by His grace, there's
nothing that can hinder Him from coming this morning and speaking
life to your dead soul. That's the kind of grace the
Bible reveals. Grace can come, therefore, to
a thief on the cross in his dying hours and save him. Grace can
come to a woman that has seven devils and save her. Grace can
come to a self-righteous Pharisee that's killing Christians and
save him. Grace can come to you and it
can come to me and save us right where it finds us because there's
no conditions that grace waits for. He's not waiting on us. We're waiting on Him. And some
of us have loved ones that's lost. And we've talked to them
and we've prayed for them. And you know what we're doing?
We're not waiting on them. We're waiting on Him. We're waiting
to see what His will is. We preach to Him. We witness
to Him. And then we wait to see what God will do with you. And
if He passes you by because of your rebellion, we'll be to you.
But oh, if He's pleased to come in His grace and save you, you'll
not hinder Him. You'll not stop Him. And more
than that, when He gets finished with you, you'll be a-begging
Him to do it. Grace by grace are you saved. But what kind
of grace is that? It's uncaused in the Reciprocant.
It's found in God alone. It doesn't wait for any condition.
It comes unconditioned. And notice this about grace.
It utterly refuses our help. It utterly refuses our help. It does not come and save those
with any ability to save themselves, but it comes to those who are
utterly unable to do anything to earn or merit or accomplish
their salvation. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. And that not of yourselves. Should I repeat that? By grace
are you saved, and that not of yourself. If a man can repent
of himself, he don't need grace. If a man can believe of his own
will and volition, he don't need grace. If a man can give himself
life, he don't need grace. If a man can give himself a new
heart and a new spirit, he don't need grace. If you can earn forgiveness,
you don't need grace. If there's a spark of life and
light in a man, he don't need grace. If we only need assistance,
that implies some ability. And therefore, grace will not
act. It's against the nature of grace
to act where there is ability for a man to act on his own. Because grace does not come just
to help us save ourselves. Grace comes to save us. By grace
are you saved, and that not of yourself. Ain't that wonderful? When Joseph was down in Egypt
and he sent for his dad back in the land of Canaan, he didn't
send a message and say, Dad, if you can get down here, everything's
fine, I'll take care of you. What did he do? He wanted his
dad down there. So what did he do? He loaded
up a bunch of mules with all kinds of food on them and all
kinds of material and furniture. And he loaded up wagons and sent
them after his dad. And you know what he said? Don't
regard any of your stuff. I'm sending everything you need.
And I'm telling you when grace comes to save us, he says to
us, don't regard any of your stuff. I don't need your stuff. I can save you right where I
find you. That's grace, isn't it? That's grace. That's grace. Notice how our text reads, For
by grace are you saved. These verses cover every aspect
in regards to salvation. And when I say that, I mean in
regards to condition and in regards to time. Chapter 1 covers from
the foundation of the world, verses 1 through 4, to the ages
to come. The ages to come. Look in verse
7, chapter 2. That in the ages to come, He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness
towards us. So we can say that in every age,
when you look at salvation, If it's before the world, if it's
the present time, or it's in the world to come, every aspect
in regard to time, you are saved by grace. There's not been a
time in the past, or present, or in the future where you can
find man's words. It's conditioned upon his doing
or not doing to be saved. It's always salvation by grace. Grace. I tell you one of the
most wonderful feelings, if you talk about feelings, I ever get
in my heart is when it dawns upon me that I'll be saved in
the future the same way that I've been saved in the past.
By grace. By grace. I've been on the way
now for 44 years or so. And I look back to when grace
first taught my heart to fear. And grace, my fears relieved,
and I can sing with dear old Newton, was grace that brought
me safe this far. And when I look out in the rest
of my life, however many years is that going to be, I'm going
to say the same thing. Grace will lead me home. And you can say the same thing,
can't you? Peter said, gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober
and hope to the end. For what? Grace? That grace is to come at the
revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And someone's going to
say, Bruce, but don't you think we have to believe? Well, of
course we have to believe. Of course we must believe. He
says, by grace, oh, you're saved through faith. But what is faith? It's as much a gift of God as
forgiveness of sins is, isn't it? By grace are you saved through
faith, not of yourself. It is salvation and faith is
the gift of God. You know how you can know that
God is working in you? You know how you can know that
He saved you? When He comes and gives you a hearing ear. When
you believe what you hear. That's the way He saves us. He
doesn't save us by doing anything but by hearing. Hear and your
soul shall live. And when you hear, believe in
what you've heard, you're saved. Ain't that wonderful? Paul was writing to the Galatians
all mixed up with the ceremony of law and all this. He said,
this is only what I learned of you. Received you the Spirit?
Have you received the Spirit of adoption? How did you receive
Him? By the works of the law or by
the hearing of faith? That's why he tells us in chapter
1 and verse 13, look at this again, "...and whom ye also trusted
after that ye heard the word of truth." You trusted. When did you trust? When you
heard. When you heard. Oh, faith. Faith is essential,
but it's a gift. It's a gift. Secondly, look at this right
quickly. And I'll try to get through this real quickly. Give
me just a few more minutes. The second glorious thing about
grace is this, and he says in verse 10, we are His workmanship
created in Christ Jesus unto good works. That's the glorious
thing about grace. I mean, He don't save us and
leave us like we are. That's one of the things that
we're hearing some about today, that you're saved and you've
got faith without works. That a man can be saved and not
love God, not love Christ, not love His Word? It'll never happen,
brothers and sisters. That'd be confusing. No lost
man loves God. I don't care what they say. But
there is no saved man, but he loves God. He loves Jesus Christ. We love Him because He first
loved us. We love His will. We love His
Word. We love His commandments. We love His rule. We love holiness. We love godliness. Because He's
made us new in Christ. Being saved is not making a profession. Being saved is not coming to
a system of theology. Being saved is being made a new
creation. We're His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. I'd never send a gracious man
to Mount Sinai to teach him how to live. I just wouldn't do it. I wouldn't send the same person
to Sinai to find out how to walk and how to live his life in this
world and how to please God. But I would send him to these
gospel principles that you see some in the Old Testament, many
in the four gospels, and the epistles are just full of these
gospel precepts by which we live and regulate our I want to show
you some of them right in this Ephesian epistle. Look in chapter
4. Here's motives for doing good. And I'm telling you this morning,
if you're in Christ, you love these things. If you're a new
creature in Christ, you love these things. And you marvel
that you lived all of your life and everything that you did was
just pleasing to God. But now, you can please Him. You can please Him. You can do
good because He created you. Look what He says in chapter
4 and look in verse 25. Wherefore put in away lying.
Why should we not lie? You know the Bible says God hates
lying liars. And you know the Bible says all
liars shall have their part in the lake of fire. But you know
there's better motives for God's children not to lie. Look how
He says it. Wherefore put away lying. Speak
every man truth with his neighbor, for you are members one of another."
Don't lie. Don't lie to each other. Bruce,
don't lie to Larry because you're members of the same body. Christ
is your head and you're members one of another. What would I
think if my hand took a straight pin and began to stick it in
my eye? What if I thought, what would
I think if my hand took poison and put it in my mouth? What
would I think if my leg stuck my foot in the fire? That's impossible,
isn't it? Every man loves his own body
and nourishes and cherishes it. And how much more the body of
Christ. Don't lie one to another, brethren. We're of the same body.
Don't injure one another. If you lie to me, you injure
me. If I lie to you, I injure you. I should never do that because
we're members of the body of Jesus Christ. Boy, that's a good motive, isn't
it? That's a good motive. Look what he says in verse 28.
This is amazing. Let him that stole steal no more. What is that? Somebody phone? Oh, it's him? Look in verse 28, ìLet him that
stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his
hands the things which is good that he may have to give to him
that need it.î Look what a Christian can do. He can work with his
hands, and in the very eyes of God, itís good. The Bible says
the plowing of the wicked is sin. But you know something,
when Paul made tents, it was good. He made tents and supported
himself. And you know what God said? Paul,
that's good. Dorcas made coats and garments
for people to give to. And that was a good work. That
woman earned with her own money a alabaster box of ointment and
brought it and put it on the head of the Lord Jesus. And what
did He say? She has wrought a good work. That's good. And when you ladies go to wash
your dishes, that's a good work. When you go to clean your house,
that's a good work. When you clean your closet out and take
a lot of your clothes down to Goodwill, that's a good work.
When you husbands go off to support your family, that's a good work.
Especially as you work and support others. You're created unto good
works. I tell you, brothers and sisters,
a lazy Christian that won't work for the glory of God and the
good of others, that's an oxymoron. That's an oxymoron. That's impossible
for such a thing to happen. The same grace that saves us
from dead works creates us unto good works. And look what he
says in chapter 4 and verse 31. And you know, I haven't went
to Mount Sinai yet. This went to these precepts of
the gospel. Because you are what you are, live the way you should. Look in verse 31. Let all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away
from you with all malice and be you kind and tender hearted,
forgiving one another. Now you know what medical science,
the psychologists and so on tell us today. They tell us that if
your mind is full of turmoil and your spirit is always full
of bitterness and you live with an unforgiving attitude, then
you're probably going to have something happen to you like
a heart attack or something. One of the things they advise
you is stay calm. Be calm if you can. Don't live
under all this stress and turmoil inside. That's good even in the
medical realm. But you know the children of
God have a much better motive for doing that. Look at this. Even as God, for Christ's sake,
hath forgiven you. Why should I stay calm? Why should
I not be angry with God's children? Why should I forgive them, even
as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you? Let me hurry through
these. Just go right on. Look. You find
this in all the epistles. Look what he said in chapter
5, verse 1. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. Follow
Him. Imitate Him. Look and see how
He does and do the same. And walk in love even as Christ
also loved us and hath given Himself an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet-smelling Savior. Look in verse 3. The fornication
and all uncleanness and covetousness Let it not be what's named among
you. Why? Why should we not get together
and talk about all this vulgar stuff that's going on in the
field? Well, because, Bruce, if we do
that, then we'll probably go to hell with the rest of them.
Well, look at the motive he gives. As becometh saints. It don't
become God's little children to sit around and talk about
this filthy stuff, does it? Look in verse 4, neither filthiness,
nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but
rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no whoremonger,
nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is not an idolater,
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no
man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things comes
the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be ye therefore
not partakers with him. Look at this, by these motives.
Here's the motive. For ye were sometimes darkness,
but now are you light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. You're not in darkness. He's
called you out of His light. What a motive then to walk in
the light. Look down in verse 22. Wives, Submit yourselves unto your own
husbands. Why? Well, it's my duty. It is. It is. But there's a better motive.
Ask unto the Lord. You wives, have you submitted
yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He your real husband in your
head? Then if that's so, submit yourself to your husband. Look
in verse 25. Husbands, love your wives. Why? Well, that's a duty. Well, I've
got no problem with duty, but there's a better motive. Even
as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it. Look down in chapter 6 and verse
1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Are you in the Lord,
young man, young woman? Are your parents in the Lord?
Then obey them, because you and they are in The Lord, what a
motive that is! I've got no advice for lost people
except repent and believe the gospel. But boy, we have all
kinds of advice and commands and motives for saved people,
how they should live. Look in verse 4. Your fathers
provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the
fear and admonition, the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Look
at the servants, the slaves in verse 5. Be obedient to them
that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling,
and singleness of your heart as unto Christ. Not just afraid they're going
to beat you if you don't obey them. You serve them as you would
serve Christ. What motives that is. And look
at one more in verse 9. You masters, do the same things
unto them, forbearing threatenance. Why? Knowing that you have a
master in heaven. You are masters in heaven. See
the motives for doing good work? It's just full of them, isn't
it? Oh, He saved us and how glorious is the grace that saves us. But
I tell you something that's just as glorious. He can take an old
man that's dead in sin and hated God, couldn't do a good thing,
didn't know how to live for God's glory and make a new creature
out of him. He loves the Lord and everything
He does. He said, I want to do it for
the glory of my Master. That's wonderful. Grace is wonderful,
isn't it? Grace is wonderful. Let us pray.