The book of Ephesians, the epistle
of Paul to the Ephesians, chapter 1. I want to read these 23 verses
in this chapter if you would like to read along with me. Ephesians
chapter 1 and beginning in verse 1. 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. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as
he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of
the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
of sins, according to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath
abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known
unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure,
which he purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the
fullest of times he might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even
in him, in whom also you have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to
the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ, and whom you
also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation, and whom also, after that you believed,
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the
earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
and to the praise of His glory. Wherefore, I also, after I heard
of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
cease not to give thanks to God for you, making mention of you
in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of Him. The eyes of your understanding
being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His
calling, that you may know what is the riches of His glory of
His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness
of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His
mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead, and set Him on His own right hand in heavenly
places. For above all principalities,
and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and
hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head
over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness
of him that filleth or fulfills all things. I want us to just
look at this chapter, and I don't want to go verse by verse, but
I guess we could call it probably Gleanings in Ephesians 1. Paul does something here in this
chapter that he doesn't do in all the other epistles that he
writes. And it's amazing what he does. He begins to show the
redeeming purpose of God. And he begins at the beginning
and goes all the way to the end. from God's election all the way
to glorification. He begins here in verse 1. He
gives this general greeting. He often does that. He tells
who this letter is from, and then he tells who it's to. It's
from Paul, and it's to these Ephesians, those he calls there
the saints, which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ
Jesus. And then here in verse 2, he
gives this blessing. He says, Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want to begin
with seeing two things here in these verses that's amazing as
we look at them and think about them. Paul, an apostle of Jesus
Christ. Now that's an amazing thing to
me. Because you and I have often studied the life of Saul of Tarshish. And what did he say about himself?
That he said, I sought to do many things contrary to the name
of Jesus of Nazareth, which things I did. We know that he was an
enemy of Jesus Christ. Sought to stamp out his name.
He said, I was a blasphemer. But now he makes this wonderful
statement, he said, I am an apostle of Jesus Christ. I am a special
messenger of Jesus Christ. I am sent. I have been equipped. I have been given this power
to go out and speak on behalf of Jesus Christ. Now that's a
dramatic change, isn't it? Take a man that was the chief
enemy of Christ, and here now he's the chief lover of Christ. the chief preacher of Jesus Christ.
But here's what I wanted to look at, and it fits so well through
all of this chapter here that the Apostle Paul is talking about.
What does he attribute this to? What does he attribute this great
change to? That now he is an apostle of
Jesus Christ, and he attributes it just to this one thing, the
will of God. I am an apostle by the will of
God. And you know what that tells
us? This man believed in the sovereign, irresistible will
of God. He experienced it. He went to
the Old Testament and proved the doctrine of it because the
Old Testament says he doeth according to his will in the armies of
heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And I can just
see Paul, when the Lord saves him, he turns over there and
he says, I never saw that before. This is the will of God, and
it's a sovereign will, irresistible will. And then he thinks of this. I've experienced this because
I am not an apostle. And why am I not an apostle?
God's will. God's will. He's made me not
an apostle. He uses this word will three
other times in the first chapter of the book here of Ephesians. He mentions it again here in
verse 5, and look how He uses it here. Every time He mentions
it, He teaches us something else by it. And it lets us see what
the will of God is. Having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself, according to
the good pleasure of His will. Why did God predestinate his
elect people unto the adoption of children. To say that he merely
willed to do it is an understatement, isn't it? He not only willed
to do it, he delighted to do it. If we were reading this to
children, we would say it tickled him to death to do it. He gloried
to do it. He was so pleased to do it. The good pleasure of his will. You know God didn't do any of
these things out of necessity. He didn't choose anybody out
of necessity. Nobody coerced Him to do it.
Nobody forced Him to do it. When He predestinated His people
unto the adoption of children, He did so because He took such
great pleasure in doing it. He took pleasure in doing it.
Another place it says that it pleased Him. to make you His
children. It pleased you to make you His
children. He predestinated you into the adoption of children
to Himself. He predestinated you to be in
His heavenly family. And why did He do it? It was
the good pleasure of His will. This word predestination, it
means to determine beforehand. Isn't it a wonderful thing? You
look back now on your lost life and you had no idea about this,
did you? That all along it pleased God to adopt you into His family. And that's why He did it. It
was His will and it pleased His will. That's the second place
this word is mentioned. And the third time He mentioned
it here in verse 9 and He talks about the mystery. of God's will. Somebody that's lost, they'll
say, well, I know God's will. No, you don't. None of us can
know God's will until He reveals it. That's the only way to know
God's will. It's hid in His own heart. And
we can't know it until He reveals it. Look what He says in verse
9. Having made known unto us the mystery of His will according
to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself. God's will is a mystery until
He reveals it. Has God revealed everything about
His will? Why, no. We really know very
little about it, do we? He hasn't revealed what's going
to take place in my life tomorrow. Do you know what's going to take
place in your life tomorrow? You have no idea. You may be
devastated tomorrow. You may come into grace Earthly
prosperity tomorrow. We don't know, do we? James says,
we know not what's going to be on the morrow. You know something? God is not revealed to me if
He's going to save my lost loved ones. I continue to pray for
them. I don't know if it's going to
be God's will to save them. I don't know. You know He's not revealed
to us His will in the coming of Jesus Christ. We don't know
the day or we don't know the hour, do we? So many things that
He's not revealed about His will. But you know, we know some things
about His will because He's revealed it, hasn't He? In verse 4, He's
revealed this. He reveals that it was His will
to choose a great host to salvation. That was His will. We know that
because He's revealed it. I just read it to you. We know
this, those that He's elected to salvation, He's redeemed by
the blood of Christ. We know that because verse 7
tells us, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
of sin. And I know something else. If
you're here this morning and you've heard the Gospel, and
you've been brought to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you
know it's been God's will to save you. He's revealed that
to you, hasn't He? God has revealed something else.
In verse 14, He's revealed this, that He's not only redeemed our
souls, but He's redeemed our bodies. He's revealed that. It's His will to redeem our bodies. And that's what we're waiting
on now. The redemption of the purchased possession. And how
do we know that it's God's will to redeem our bodies? He just
told us. He just revealed it to us. And one of the most blessed things
to know about God's will is that it was His will to save me. Ain't that a blessed thing, to
set you this morning and know that it was God's will to save
you? To save you by His sovereign,
irresistible will. Of His own will begat He us with
a word of truth. And here in verse 11, look at
this. Now here's a mystery. Here's something else he says
about his will in verse 11. 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. He worketh. That word means he's
continually doing. You know God is not a lazy God,
is He? He's not idle. He's not indifferent. He's not
asleep. He's not lazy. He's working. It seems like everything's going
along haphazard, doesn't it? It's not. God is working. He's working all things to bring
about His eternal purpose. And He's working and guiding
and controlling and leading all things, it says here, after the
counsel of His own will. If I come to you this morning
and I say, I say, Wayne, I've got this wonderful purpose. Man,
I've got this purpose and I need your counsel. I need you to give
me some advice to make sure I can bring my purposes to pass. God
is not like that, is He? He don't need anybody's counsel.
He don't need anybody's wisdom. He's wise enough and knowledgeable
enough to bring His own purposes to pass. He's working these things
to fulfill His purpose. How is He working? By His own
wisdom, by His own knowledge. He don't come to me and say,
Bruce, I really need your advice. Has He ever asked you for advice?
Has He ever conformed to your opinions? No, He hasn't, hasn't. Hold that right there and look
at me. Look in Romans, just back over to your left a few chapters.
Look in Romans chapter 11 and verse 33. Look at this. Chapter 11 and verse 33 of Romans. Oh, the depth, both of the riches
and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments
and His ways. Fast find it out. For who hath
known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counselor? Nobody. He works all His purposes
after His own counsel, after the counsel of his own will. The wise man said this, without
counsel, purposes are disappointed. And they are, aren't they? A lot of us have purposes, a
lot of things, but we didn't have sense enough to bring it
to pass. Without counsel, purposes are disappointed. But in the
multitude of counselors, they are established. And you know
what? There's three glorious persons
who know everything. And all that they have purposed,
they in wisdom and knowledge are bringing to pass. And these
glorious persons are who? God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. His will, the counsel of His
will. Looking at these things, the
will of God, I think I know why now the Apostle
Paul said that we should seek to know God's will. He said in
Romans 12, 2, don't be conformed to this world, be you transformed
by the renewing of your mind that you may prove, that word
means explore and test and investigate and ascertain and know the will
of God. Somebody said, we can't know
the will of God. Well, we can. We've just been
studying about it, haven't we? Paul said, I'm an apostle by
the will of God. We've got His Word to direct
us, haven't we? And we've got His Holy Spirit
in our hearts to guide us into God's will. You know, I earnestly
believe, brothers and sisters, that the Holy Spirit can make
us to know God's will in our daily lives. Not everything,
obviously, not everything. Maybe I could say not very much,
but enough to guide us and to make us know that I am in God's
will. I tell you this much, I know
what God's will for me is this morning to be right where I am
this morning. You know that? I believe that. I'm right where God wills to
have me this morning. That you may prove what is that
good and holy and acceptable will of God. Something else here is very interesting.
Not only that, that the Apostle Paul was an Apostle by the will
of God and all he said here about the will of God. that He predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by His will. His will is a mystery
and He's working all things after the counsel of His own will.
But something else He says in verses 1 and 2, and it's very
encouraging here in verse 2, this greeting. This greeting. And He does this in all of His
epistles. Grace be unto you and peace. But notice, this is not from
the Apostle Paul. Of course He's writing it down,
but who is it from? God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul said, Grace be unto you
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course Paul wished them grace
and peace. But this is from God. This is
from God. And it wasn't just to everybody
and it wasn't just to anybody. But it was to everybody and anybody
who was in Jesus Christ. It's to the saints. To the saints
and faithful in Christ Jesus. Ain't it amazing how the world
wants to take these epistles and take them out to the world
to lost people and say things like this to lost people? God
has a wonderful plan for your life. Grace be unto you and peace
from God our Father. That's not for lost men, brothers
and sisters. The word, the message for lost
people is this. Repent and believe the Gospel.
Repent and come to Christ. That's the message for lost people.
The message for God's little children is this. First and foremost,
He sends these words of love and comfort to them. Grace and
peace be unto you from God the Father. What in the world does
that mean to you this morning? That means everything, don't
it? That means everything. Paul is here writing to these
churches. And boy, some of the churches
he was writing to, my goodness, they were in great affliction.
He was writing to those in Thessalonica. And he said this, let no man
be moved by these afflictions. For you know that we were appointed
thereto afflictions. To you who are troubled, rest
with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven." And
he exhorts these believers, these churches, that through much tribulation
we must enter into the kingdom of heaven. So what does this
mean when they open this epistle and the first thing they get
is this message from God their Father? and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you. My unmerited
favor and peace, my peace be to you. Man, you talk about comfort. You talk about peace from God. But he wrote these epistles also
to some of the churches that were suffering moral issues.
Man, he was writing to Corinthian church and he says the same thing.
Grace be unto you in peace. And you want to read a church
that was in a mess, read about the Corinthian church. The Galatian church, they were
in danger of believing the gospel. But he writes the same thing
to them. This church here at Ephesus, remember what happened
to them later on? And the Lord Jesus rebuked them
for it. He said, you've left your first love. And boy, he
severely rebuked them for that. But here's what I'm saying, brothers
and sisters. If you're a child of God this
morning, I don't know where you may be. I don't know if you may
be in great afflictions or persecutions or tribulation. I don't know
if through sloth and neglect God has hid His face from you
and chastened you sore like Brad said He'd done those Jews of
old. But here's the thing. First and foremost, He sends
this to His children. Grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I tell you, I've had
times in my Christian life where my life was an absolute mess
and I knew it. And I lived with a heavy conscience
because of it. There's other times I've been
sorely tried and confused and I didn't know which way to turn.
I was like poor David asking all of those questions How long
will you forget me, O Lord? Forever? Have you ever experienced
that? Sometime go over in the 13th
chapter of Psalms and in the 77th chapter of Psalms and look
at where David was in his heart. Look at the doubts and the fears
that that man was entertaining. Let me read some of them to you. How long will you hide your face
from me? How long shall I take counsel
in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall
my enemies be exalted over me? He was in a bad way, wasn't he? And then in Psalm 77, listen
to this, Will the Lord cast off forever? Will He be favorable
unto me no more? Is His mercy clean gone forever? Does His promises fail forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anguish shut up His
tender mercy? Boy, these things can afflict
a saint when he feels like God has forsaken him and Satan is
ruling over him and afflicting him. But you know what the answer
to all of these questions are? No. No, God hasn't forgot to
be gracious. No, He is not in tender anger
shut up His mercy, though He's hid His face, though He chastens
us sore. When we open up His epistle,
what does He say to us? The first thing He says is this,
Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father. Don't that mean something to
you? It takes a strong faith in God's
Word to believe this, though, and to remember it and to live
in the experience of it, especially during these trials and these
times of chastening. Listen, our relationship with
God our Father is a sure and lasting and a continual relationship. When He makes you His child,
you're not His child today. and a child of the devil tomorrow.
You are not a child of God this morning and a child of nature
again next year. A child of God now and a child
of God forever. And that relationship will never
be broken. He can write to you, dear child
of God, no matter where you are and the circumstances you find
yourself in. And He can say this to you, grace
be unto you and peace. I'm your father, I'm your father. And He can say that because of
the stability of this relationship. Why? Why is this relationship
never broken? Well, let me give you two reasons.
One is you're in verse 5 and 6 of chapter 1. Because it's
by Christ and in Christ. God has made us His children
by Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. Look how He says it.
Again in verse 5, having predestinated us into the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ Himself. In verse 6, to the praise of
the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. God has brought us back to Himself.
But how has He done it? By Jesus Christ. By His cross. He's removed the condemnation
by Jesus Christ, by His blood. Is He going to turn right around
now and condemn us? Why, no. He's reconciled us to
Himself by Christ. And He's accepted us in the Beloved. Is He going to turn right around
now and reject us? Why would He reject us? Well,
if you do this or if you do that, okay. Is that why He accepted
you? Is it because you did this or
you did that? Why did He accept you? In whom
did He accept you? In His Son. In His Son. You are a child of God in His
Son. In His Son you are just as much
a child of God as Christ is Himself. Ain't that what He said? And
you are just as much loved as Christ is loved. That's amazing,
isn't it? So near, so near, I could not
be. In the person of His Son, I am
as near as He in Christ. And as long as you're in Christ,
that'll never change. That'll never change. All God
does for His children is for the sake of Christ. And the second
thing here that makes this relationship is sure is because God predestinated
it. It's His will. Having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children according to the good pleasure
of His will, can that adoption then be disannulled? Can He say,
I don't want you as my child anymore? I have to adopt him
and give him the spirit of adoption? No! He's purposed it! And He can't change His purpose.
He will change His purpose. Look over in Romans chapter 8
with me. Brother Wayne taught us on this a while back. In Romans
chapter 8. And look in verse 14. This is what I'm talking about. Romans chapter 8 and verse 14. I don't know that I've ever found
a passage of Scripture that was more encouraging to me, especially
in a dark, lonely valley or a hill of difficulty, than this passage
right here. In verse 14 of chapter 8 of Romans,
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God. For you have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear. Do you ever fear that you're
not a child of God? You say, oh, I believe earnestly there
was a time, I was, that He bore witness to my spirit that I was
His child, but now it seems like He's cast me away. I'm so afraid
that I'm not a child anymore. Paul said, you've not received
that from God. It's not Him that's tempting
you to fear. But you have received the Spirit
of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father, Father, Father. Once a child of God, always a
child of God. Once the Spirit of adoption comes
to your heart, He'll never leave. You'll never be lost again. You'll never be forsaken of your
Father. I'll tell you this, if it happens.
then pull God off of His throne and say He's not sovereign in
His will. And what He predestinated means nothing. Forget about it.
Everything is by chance. And the devil can thwart the
will of God and His purpose in predestination. God has predestinated
us to the adoption of children. And nothing or nobody will ever
undo that. Go back to our text one more
time. Quickly, one more time, in verses 3 and verse 4. The
Apostle is going to do something here now. Look how he does it. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. What's the Apostle
Paul doing here? Well, he's going to tell us about
God's electing grace and God's electing love. He chose you in
Christ before the foundation of the world. And how does he
begin his subject? Praising God. Blessing God. Blessed be God. He doesn't begin with trying
to explain it away. You ever seen people do that? You read the Armenians sometimes,
and they'll take a verse like this, God has chosen us in Christ
before the foundation of the world, and they'll write a whole
page on it, and it makes no sense at all. And people will read
it and they say, well, what is election anyway? I can't understand
it. They just explain it away. Read Adam Clark sometime, his
commentary on election. He explains it away. Nobody can
understand it when he's finished with it. Paul doesn't explain
it away, does he? He takes one verse and he just
proclaims it. What God has done, He's chosen
you in Christ to salvation before the foundation of the world.
And what does he do? I praise God for doing it. I
thank God for doing it. He doesn't find fault with God.
He doesn't say that's not fair. He doesn't even deal with that
at all. He says God has chosen you to salvation in Christ and
I bless His name for doing it. Bless Him for His electing love.
I've often told you about old Ralph Barnard. The guy sent him
the little book on the despised doctrine of election. Mr. Barnard Put some X's through
the title and send it back and say, change your title. The doctrine
of God's election is not despised. We love it. We love it. And Paul didn't despise it, did
he? He was riding to that Thessalonican church and telling them that
God had chosen them and what did he say? I thank God. I thank God for you, brother
and beloved, because He has from the beginning chosen you to salvation. So when he begins to proclaim
here God's elect in love, he doesn't try to explain it away.
He's not ashamed of it. He just proclaims it and thanks
God for it. Do you thank God for His election? I tell you, there's no hope without
it. I remember years ago, I hadn't been saved just very long at
all, and I was studying these things. I went to a Bible conference
over in Anderson. And we worshipped service, and I
sat in the back. I wasn't nobody, a young man.
And they asked this real old man, he's an old white-haired
fella, if he had just missed. And I remember that old man standing
to his feet, and here's the first thing he said. Oh, Father in
Heaven, thank you for your elected love. I thought, my goodness,
thank you for your elected love. Live in the praises of that.
Thank you. What is election? What is it?
Well, it's God the Father choosing, isn't it? He hath chosen you. We love that. It was not that
I did choose thee. Lord, that could never be. His
heart would still refuse you. But thou has chosen me. Election is God choosing a great
host out of Adam's race to salvation in Jesus Christ the Lord. He has set them aside for blessings. And He set the blessings aside
for them. Isn't that what He teaches? He
hath blessed us, the elect, with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places according as He hath chosen us in Him before the world was.
So that's just simply telling us that God has already decided
this. He's decided who He's going to
save and He's decided who He's going to give the blessings to.
He set them apart for the blessings and the blessings apart from
them." Have we experienced all the blessings
of God? He seems to be saying that, doesn't
He? He says, "...they are blessed be the God and Father who hath
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus." You
know, it's obvious that we haven't experienced all of God's spiritual
blessings. We just haven't have one. We
haven't. It would be naive to think that, and it would be sad
to think that, that we've experienced them all. Then why does He say
here that He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings? It's like this, and I like to
think of this like this. It's like a father who is very,
very rich. He's like old Donald Trump. He's
50 rich. And he's got all of his goods laid up for His Son. He's got it laid up in His inheritance. And His Son lives off of that
inheritance. He lives His daily life. He draws
off of that inheritance. Just enough to get by on. But when the day comes, when
the hour comes, when the moment comes, Then he gets all of that
inheritance. Now, you see, he's just living
off of it as he needs it. It's given to him. But when that
time comes, he gets it all. He gets it all. I told you about
my dad digging a hole and burying $50,000 in it. I never will forget
that. I went down to see my dad one
time. He lived by himself, and he had an old garage with an
old gravel floor in it, and he had me out there with a shovel
and said, I want you to dig right here. And I said, well, what
am I digging for? And finally, he said, be careful now, you'll
get close to it. And I hit a huge half a gallon jug, a jar, glass
jug. And I seen it had some money
in it. Once we unwrapped it, he had
it wrapped in aluminum foil and rags and everything else. It
looked awful when we saw it. We took it in the house and I
laid it on the kitchen table and dumped it all out and pulled
it out. It was all stuck in there. And
I sat there and counted that money. And I'm telling you, my
wife and I were just struggling to get by, raising the children,
just barely getting by. And here I started counting that
money, $50,000. Now that may not be much money
to some of you, but I'm telling you, that was a fortune to me. And He said, that's your inheritance.
That's your inheritance. And you know what I did? I just
looked at it, and I counted it, and I looked at it some more,
and I counted it some more. And I just sat there and looked
and counted and counted. When you do that, if you were
poor, what an inheritance. Inheritance. That's the way God
is with us. He's got all of this Rich blessings,
this inheritance, and it's laid up for His children. But right
now, right now, He's just dishing it out. They're drawing on it
every day as they need it until that time comes that He reveals
the complete inheritance. And you think I was happy sitting
at my dad's table counting that $50,000. That'll be a toy. That'll be nothing. compared
to that eternal inheritance which God has laid up for His children.
He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, but we are experiencing
very little of it as we go. Very little of it. I want to
show you one more passage of Scripture, and then we'll come
to a close here. Look in Romans chapter 4. Romans
chapter 4. He can call these Blessings now,
and He can say that He hath blessed us as though He's already blessed
us. Because that's the way God talks. That's the way He thinks
about things. Look here in Abraham's case.
Look in Romans chapter 4. Look here in verse 13 and verse
17. The Lord was always telling Abraham,
I'm going to give you the land, Abraham. I'm going to give you
the land. Then finally he says, I've already given it to you.
I've given you the land. He told Abraham here, he said,
I've made you a father. Look at that. Verse 13, For the
promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to
Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness
of faith. Verse 17, As it is written, I
have made thee a father of many nations. You know something? Abraham did not even have a kid.
He said, I made you a father of many nations. He said, Lord,
I do not even have a child. And you are telling me you made
me a father of many nations? How can this be? Read on. Before
him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and
calleth those things which be not as though they were. You know the purpose of God.
You're already in heaven. You're already glorified. Not
in your experience. Not by a long shot. But you know
when God talks about His purpose, it's all in past tense. Those
He foreknew, He predestinated, He called, He justified, and
He glorified. How can He say that we're glorified? Because He can say those things
which are not yet done are done. in my mind, in my purpose. He said, Abraham, unto thy seed
I have given the land of Canaan. And Abraham did not even have
a kid. But God can say that, can He? And He can say, I have
blessed you, I have blessed you with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ, even though you have not experienced
them yet. He did a wonderful thought to
think that when you sin and you will sin, you will sin. As heartbreaking as that may
seem now for me to stand up here and say you will sin, I will
sin. It would almost be presumptuous
to me to say I'm going to continue the rest of my life and I ain't
going to sin again. Oh, I don't want to sin again.
God keep me from sinning against you. But you know something,
when I do, there's something laid up in heaven for me. And
you know what it is? Forgiveness. Forgiveness. If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Forgiveness
is already laid up. He knew we were going to sin.
And He's given us an advocate with a Father to plead and maintain
our cause. Forgiveness is laid up. Spiritual
blessings are laid up. And here's another one. In a
few days, you're going to need strength. Because you're going
to be utterly weak. Something's going to happen to
you and bring you low. And you're going to be weak.
You know something? There's a blessing laid up already.
And it's strength. It's renewed strength. You know
something else that's laid up for you? There's another lesson
laid up for you, and that's dying grace. And you know why He don't give
you that blessing right now? You're not dying. But when you
come down to die, there's a blessing already laid up. He hath blessed
us. And He'll give you dying grace
when the time comes. And there's another blessing
laid up. And that's the redemption of our bodies. I love this. I love this. Turn back over to
our text just one more time. And look at this with me. Look
in verse 13. Chapter 1. In whom ye also trusted
after ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
In whom also after ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. Look at this. Which is the earnest. of our inheritance until the
redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His glory. You know what he's telling us
there? He's telling us these two wonderful things. Right now,
we just have an earnest of the Holy Spirit. That word simply
means a down payment. If you give somebody a down payment
on a vehicle, what you're saying with, there's more where this
is coming from. I give you this now and I'm going to give you
the rest when I pick up the vehicle." And what does God do? He blesses
His children with His Spirit. But it's just a small supply.
But there's coming a day when the children of God will be filled
beyond measure with the Holy Spirit. You've got blood running
through your veins now, the Spirit of God will be there. You've
got weak bowel flesh now, that'll be the Spirit of God, a new body,
a new spirit. We have an earnest now that there's
laid up this blessing, the full supply, their inheritance. I haven't experienced them yet,
have I? Are they sure? Yes, they're sure. Because it's
God's purpose. So He comes here in chapter 1
and He begins with God choosing us in Christ before the foundation
of the world, and then He brings it all the way here in verse
14, the redemption of the purchased possession. Brothers and sisters,
take care of your bodies. If you're going to wear them
out, wear them out in His service. Take care of your bodies because
they're His. We talk about looking out for
our soul as well as we should. We should look out for our bodies.
Because there is. Christ purchased our bodies. Lord bless His Word.