One great radio personality of
many years ago and considered by many to be the most successful
radio personality in those days said that the key to his success
as a radio announcer and entertainer was that he addressed people
not as a group but individually. He said, I talked to one person
I'm talking to the man who's driving the car, I'm talking
to the woman who's working in her kitchen, I'm talking to the
person who is in the hospital room, to just one person, one-on-one. And that's the way I want to
talk to you today. I'd like very much for you to get your Bibles.
I wish you'd do that. Just find your Bible, and I want
you to open that Bible to the book of Ephesians, the first
chapter of the book of Ephesians. And I'm going to begin reading
with verse 3 and I hope be able to talk about some of the things
that are said in every one of these verses down to verse 10,
11, or 12. And the title of my message today
is Accepted in the Beloved. Accepted in the Beloved. Now
just take your Bible and pull up a chair and sit down and listen
to me, will you? Let me talk to you one-on-one. It may be that God will open
our eyes to see some of his glorious truth and open our ears to hear
him, not just a man, but hear God speak through that man and
through his words. and open our hearts to enter
into the glorious mysteries of his grace. Give us some understanding,
some understanding of the mysteries of the gospel. Here in the third
chapter, or first chapter, third verse of the book of Ephesians,
the verse begins this way, blessed, and that word is praise the Lord,
praise to God, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, what poor creatures we are. We have neither the will nor
the understanding nor the vocabulary to praise God like God ought
to be praised. Like David in the Psalms, Moses
wrote many of the Psalms also. But in Psalm 135, David said,
Bless the Lord, praise the Lord, O house of Israel. Bless the
Lord, O house of Aaron. Bless the Lord, bless God, O
house of Levi. Bless the Lord, ye that fear
the Lord. And then the last psalm, Psalm
150, the very last line of that last psalm, David said, let everything
that hath breath praise the Lord. And that's the way Paul begins
this third verse. in chapter 1 of Ephesians, bless
God, praise God, bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Why should God be praised? Why should God be blessed by
all his creatures? Well, first of all, we praise
God because he is God. We praise him not just for his
benefits and his blessings, we praise him for his character.
Our God is infinite in power. Our God is infinite in holiness. Holiness is to be praised. Holiness
is to be admired. Holiness is to be respected and
held in awe. Holy and reverent is his name. And our God is infinite in love. And our God is infinite in wisdom
and majesty. He's worthy to be praised. Did
you ever listen carefully to our theme song? We've been using
it for about 11 years now. O Lord my God, when I in awesome
wonder consider all the world thy hand hath made, I see the
stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe
displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee. How great Thou art. Bless God. Why? Because He is
God. Because He is God and worthy
to be praised. And then secondly, we praise
God because He's the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed
be the God and the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, O unspeakable
gift of infinite love, he gave the Lord Jesus Christ, the son
of his love, his only begotten. Let's never fall, let me tell
you something, let us never fall into the mistaken notion that
Jesus Christ came to this earth and convinced God that he ought
to love us. That the God of the Old Testament
and Christ are two different characters is not so. Christ
came into the world because God loved us. Christ is the gift
of God's love. He's the father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. God loved us before Christ came. Christ came because God loved
us. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. Herein is love. It's not
that we love God, but that God loved us and gave his only begotten
Son to be the propitiation for our sins. We praise God because
he loved us. and because he gave Christ to
be our sacrifice and our sin offering and substitute. And
then thirdly, We praise God because he hath blessed us. Now look
at that third verse again. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us. Who hath blessed
us. God hath blessed us. He hath
blessed us. It's done. It's done. He hath blessed us. Known unto
God are all his works from the beginning. He declares the end
from the beginning. Everything that takes place in
time is decreed and purposed by God in eternity. Nothing takes
God by surprise. And God never plans anything
in time that he didn't decree in eternity. He has blessed us,
already blessed us. And he's blessed us with all
spiritual blessings. Now, my friends, you may not
have all that you think you need. physically and materially. You
may not have all that you want physically and materially, but
you have all you need spiritually in Christ. God hath blessed us,
God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings, all that
we need. Of God are you in Christ who
is made unto us all that we need, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification
and redemption, everything we need. Now we don't have all that
we think we need, we don't have all that we want usually, but
we have all that we need. God has supplied every need according
to his riches in glory through Christ Jesus. Now watch this.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who
has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in
Christ. In Christ. Now, here's where
we want to camp for a while. These spiritual blessings are
not in the church. That's not where I received them.
They're not vested in the church. These spiritual blessings are
in Christ. All these spiritual blessings
I have by identification with, and vital union with, not a church,
but a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He blessed, praised God. the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath himself blessed us with all that we need spiritually,
all that the law requires, all that justice demands, all that
heaven requires. He hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings, justification, sanctification, redemption, righteousness, all
that we need. In Christ. In Christ. That's where it is. It's not
in myself, it's not in my profession, it's not in my experience, but
he's blessed me in Christ. Listen to what someone wrote
years ago. In Christ, the Father's love was freely to men given. In Christ, the Father's righteous
grace secured our home in heaven. In Christ, I have all my soul
desires, he is my supreme delight. In Christ, all that the Heavenly
Father requires to turn my darkness into light. In Christ, the source
of all my bliss, my savior, my brother, my friend. In Christ
is all my righteousness, on him alone I depend. All I need, all I need, Jesus
Christ is all I need. So here we start this third verse.
Bless God, praise God, because he is God. because he is worthy
to be praised, because he is the father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and because he in Christ has blessed us, has given us
all we need. All spiritual blessings, all
spiritual requirements, all spiritual necessities are ours in Jesus
Christ our Lord. Now then, in the next few verses,
in verse 4, we begin to look carefully at some of these blessings
which the Father has given to us in Christ. Some of these glorious
blessings for which we praise his matchless name. Let's look
at them. Count your many blessings. Name
them one by one. And that's what I'm going to
try to do. First of all, in verse 4, he says, we're chosen in Christ. According as he chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blame before him in love. I've asked you this
before. But let me ask you four questions,
and you answer them from the scripture. Did you choose God,
or did God choose you? Well, the scripture says he chose
us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He chose us. Our
Lord said to his disciples, you didn't choose me, I chose you. And then the second question
is this, well, when did God choose us? When does God do anything?
In eternity. before the foundation of the
world. He chose us, God, for reasons known only to himself,
according to his own pleasure, chose us. That's why. That's
the third question. Why did he choose us? He chose
us according to the good pleasure of his own will. One day our
Lord Jesus Christ lifted his eyes to heaven and he said, Father,
I thank thee, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast
hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and thou hast
revealed them unto babes for even so farther. It seemed good
in thy sight. Now here's the fourth question.
Where did he choose you? Where? God chose me. He chose me from eternity past. He chose us according to the
good pleasure of his own will, and he chose us in Christ. In Christ. That's what it says
here. According as he chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. The eternal Father has determined
to have a new heaven and a new earth. And that new heaven and
new earth will be populated by a people out of every tribe,
kindred, nation, and tongue unto heaven. And those people shall
all be conformed to the image of his beloved Son." They're
going to be like Christ. And God chose them in Christ. Christ is the firstborn of every
creature. Christ is the first elect. And
God chose us in him, and put us in him, and considered us
in him, and loved us in him, and accepted us in Christ. He
chose us. What a blessing. He didn't choose
to pass us by. He didn't leave us in our darkness.
He didn't leave us in chains of darkness like he did the angels
that fell, but he chose us. Now watch the second blessing
in verse 6. He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. You know what accepted means?
You know what it means to accept someone or something? It means
to look upon that individual with approval. With approval. It means to look upon that person
with favor. And he hath accepted us. What
a marvel. What a blessing. God hath accepted
us. He hath received us with divine
delight, divine approval, and divine favor. And you have to
think, how can that be? How can a sinful man be just
with God? How can he be clean as born of
a woman? Well, he certainly didn't accept
us in our own righteousness because Isaiah said, our righteousness
is a filthy rag. And God certainly didn't accept
us in our works, because by the works of the law, or deeds of
the law, shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. And he certainly
didn't accept us because of anything in our flesh, because in the
flesh dwelleth no good thing, in the flesh no man can please
God. And he certainly didn't accept us in our religious ceremonies
and rituals because he said in Isaiah 1 that he was sick of
their religious ceremonies and their lifting of hands and their
burning of incense and their offering of sacrifices. He hath
accepted us. Where then hath he accepted us?
Well, it tells us in the Beloved. He chose us in Christ. He loved
us in Christ, and he accepted us in Christ. And that in Christ
means because of Christ's representation. He was numbered with the transgressors. By one man's sin and disobedience,
we were made sinners. Even so, by the obedience of
one, we were made righteous. And God accepts the obedience
of Christ In our stead, he accepts us in that righteousness of Christ,
and in that sacrifice of Christ, for he was wounded by our transgressions,
and by his stripes we're healed. And he accepts us in that intercessory
work of Christ. You see, when Paul talked about
his confidence, his assurance, his peace, in Romans 8, 34, he
said, who can condemn me? Who can condemn me? Christ died. Yea, rather, is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us. So we are chosen in Christ, and
we are accepted in Christ. Accepted, meaning that God looks
upon us with divine delight, divine approval, and divine favor,
yea, even the cheapest of sinners, but not in ourselves, and not
in our righteousness, and not in our flesh, and not in our
works, in Christ. You say, how are we in Christ?
Well, we're in his heart. He loved us. We're in his book. That's right. You know, he talks
about the Lamb's book of life. We're in the Lamb. Rejoice that
your names are written in heaven in the Lamb's book. We're in
the hand of Christ. He said of his sheep, no man
is able to pluck them out of my hand. And then we're in the
body of Christ. He is the head and we're the
body and we're in the body of Christ. And God hath made us.
God the Father hath made us accepted, approved, received with favor
in the Beloved. Now let me give you the third
blessing. Look at verse 7. In whom, now you notice all these,
he hath chosen us in Christ, he hath accepted us in the Beloved. Now then it says, in whom we
have redemption. through his blood, the forgiveness
of sin. Now let me point this out. Any
sensible person, anyone with any knowledge of himself and
knowledge of this Bible and knowledge of of God, any sensible person
knows himself to be a sinner. And any sensible person before
God is concerned about his sins. 1 John 1.8 says, if we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And
then 1 John 1.10 says, if we say that we have not sinned,
We make God a liar and his word's not in us. David, the writer
of the Psalms, says, my sins are ever before me. Paul said,
who shall deliver me from this body of sin? My friends, thank
God in Christ we have the answer. In Christ, he said, we have redemption. We have redemption, the forgiveness
of sins, the pardon of sins in Christ. That's where it is. Now,
when Christ redeems us from our sins, when he pardons us and
forgives us, what does the scripture say about our sins? Well, it
says three or four things. Number one, it says that our
sins, past, present, and future, our sins of omission and commission,
our sins of heart and mind and flesh, Our sins, whatever they
may be, are separated from us as far as the east is from the
west. Can you comprehend that? That's infinity. They are no
more. And it says also in the scripture
that our sins are cast into the depths of the sea. Into the depths
of the sea, into the deepest sea. And then it says also in
Isaiah 38 that our sins are cast behind the back of God. And then
it also says in Hebrews 10 that he remembers them no more. that
they're out of his sight and out of his mind and out of his
remembrance. That's how powerful the blood
of Christ is. And the thing I'm stressing throughout
this whole message is in the Beloved. He hath chosen us in,
bless God, praise God, who hath chosen us in Christ, who hath
accepted us, he hath received us, In divine approval and divine
favor and delight, he's accepted us in Christ. And he has forgiven
us. We have let him go. I found a
ransom. Released him from the pit. I
found a redemption. The sins are satisfied. The law
is honored. Justice is honored. Letting go,
we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin, in Christ, in Christ. Now watch this, verse 10. That
in the dispensation of the fullness of time, when all this is over,
when all this is over, when it's all settled, when they've stopped
talking about Armageddon and tribulation and millenniums and
everything else, and there's an eternal glory, an eternal
heaven, an eternal earth of beauty and joy and righteousness and
eternal hell, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time, he,
same God, whom we've been blessing and praising and worshiping,
that he might gather together in one, in one, all things in
Christ. In Christ. We say, I'm in the
church. That's not what it says. Well,
I'm in the right denomination. That's not what it says. Well,
I'm in the faith. That's not what it says. But
I'm in sincerity and in good works. That's not what it says.
That God, the same God and Father is going to gather together in
one all things in Christ which are in heaven and which are on
earth even in him, in him. If you'd go through this first
chapter of Ephesians and underscore in him, of him, through him,
to him, it'll enlighten your mind a little bit about where
God's blessings are. In the fullness of time. He says
that in the dispensation of the fullness of time. God has a time
for all things. In his appointed time, he created
the world. In his appointed time, he sent
his Son. In his appointed time, the hours
come, Christ said. Christ died. In his appointed
time, he revealed Christ. Paul said, God who separated
me from my mother's womb was pleased to reveal his Son in
me. And in his appointed time, Christ will return. Our Lord
said the angels don't even know that day, but my Father does.
but my father does and he will return and when he returns And
you can sit all you want to and argue about what's going to happen
and what's going to take place and all the events and advents
and millenniums and tribulations and all three and a half and
three and a half and seven and thousand and all these things.
But that's not the main issue. That's whatever God does is fine
with me. But there's one thing that's
most important of all. He'll gather in the fullness
of time when it's all over in God's appointed day and God's
appointed hour. He's going to gather together.
All things in heaven and earth, all of creation, all of his promises,
in him all the promises of God are yea and amen. All Old Testament
believers, clear back to Abel, all New Testament believers,
Peter, James, and John, Apollos, Paul, all of them, All elect
men and angels of all generations and ages were in the Reformation,
in the Dark Ages, in the Middle Ages, in the New Ages, in the
modern times, in the days to come. God's going to gather together
all things in Christ, even in him. Listen to Philippians 2,
9 and 10. Wherefore God hath highly exalted
him, and given him a name which is above every name, that is
the name of Jesus. Every knee will bow and every
tongue will confess that he's Lord. It's not a matter of him,
it's a matter of women. For by him were all things created
in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
principalities or powers, all things were created by him and
for him, for Christ. Are you with me? Now look at
verse 11. There's an inheritance. Everybody likes to talk about
streets of gold, mansions on a hilltop. Beautiful streets
of gold and gates of pearl and walls of jasper and inheritance
and all that. Read verse 11. In whom we have
an inheritance. Have you been with me all the
way through this chapter? Blessed be God. Praise God, the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings, all heavenly blessings, in Christ. He chose us in Christ. He accepted
us in Christ. He redeemed us in Christ. He
gave us the forgiveness of sins in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then there he said we're going to gather together all things
in heaven and earth in the fullness of time in Christ. And verse
11 says, and in Christ we have an inheritance. It's nowhere
else. It's in Christ. being predestinated
according to the purpose of God, who worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will." Now in Romans 8, the Apostle
Paul talked about an inheritance. Yes he did, and he described
it this way, he said we're heirs of God, and what's the rest of
it? And joint heirs with Christ. Christ is the heir, and we are
joint heirs with him. We have what we have because
of our identification with him. We join heirs with Christ. All
you talk about, there is no inheritance apart from Christ. He's the heir
of all things. God has given all things into
the hands of Christ. This is where all blessings are
here and hereafter, vested in Christ. This is why the Apostle
Paul said, oh that I may win Christ and be found in him, that
by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead,
because Christ is the resurrection, and he's the life, and all things
are in him. To God, the only wise, our Savior
and our King, let all believers below the skies their humble
praises bring. Tis His almighty love, His counsel
and His care preserves us safe from sin and death and every
hurtful snare. Then all His chosen seed shall
meet around his throne, and there bless the riches of his grace,
and make his wonders known. It's all in him, and that's the
reason I entitle this message, Accepted in the Beloved. Accepted in the Beloved.