for this time in him and doing
okay doing well it's a those things have a buildup of stuff
over the years the more you take on the the worse the side effects
are you know the longer you take them so we're thankful he's done
with that for a while at least so continue remember him D parks
same situation he's in hospice Kathy Robinson is awaiting some
consultation with with a cancer doctor Patsy Ledford, I thought
she had already had this radiation treatment, but she's going to
have it in June. She just went down for a consultation. And
it's to evidently kill a nerve or do something to a nerve in
the brain that will stop her from having such pain that she
has. So remember her. Tracy Wright, Bobby Wright's
daughter, they've done several biopsies and they thought they
were benign but they changed their mind to say they're inconclusive
so they still don't know whether she's got cancer or some kind
of not. She still has a problem with her lungs feeling with fluid
and they don't know what's causing that. She's been drained four
times now and they get liters off of her lungs each time so
remember her in your prayers. better right now. She's doing
good, so I'm thankful for that. Happy birthday, Sue, this week
to Lita and Steven. I won't tell how old they are.
She still has beautiful red hair, though, so you know. What was
that? Well, if it's L'Oreal, you're worth it. Okay, let's begin our worship
service this morning with hymn number one, Oh, Worship the King
All Glorious Above. Oh, worship the king All glorious above, and gratefully
sing his praises. Our shield and defender, the
ancient of days, pavilion in splendor and girded with praise. O sing of His grace, whose robe
is the light, whose canopy space, His chariots of wrath the deep
thunderclouds form, and dark is His path on the wings of the
storm. One tongue can recite In reason
we air It shines in the light It streams from the hills In
descents to the plain Frail children of dust, and feeble
as frail, if they do. After scripture reading and prayer,
we'll sing hymn number 463. If you have your Bibles, turn
with me to the Epistle to the Ephesian Church, Ephesians chapter
2. Begin reading with verse 4 and
read through verse 9. The title of my message this
morning is Present Tense. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in the sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace
ye are saved, and hath raised us up together to make us sit
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come
he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness
toward us through Jesus Christ, For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Let us pray. Our Father, we are
thankful for such a clear and absolute message from the words
we just read from your divinely inspired infallible book that
you have given us to understand and to know who you are, and
what we are, and how it is that you have saved sinners unto yourself. We are thankful that we have
that record, and we are thankful that you have given us faith
to believe in. Help us, Lord, to worship you
as we consider these things. We pray for those who are sick.
Continue to pray for Brother Fred as he's finished. This came
a third prayer. You can bring him back to a good
measure of health. Pray for Kathy Robinson, she awaits this news,
Patsy Ledford. Pray for Inez, for Tracy Wright,
for Dee Parks. I don't know us to every case
here, Father. You know in our hearts we desire
the healing of our beloved one. And we know that you do what's best. We know that
everything you do is good. And we bow to your will. knowing
that you've created history for the welfare of your people, for
their good and for your glory. And we thank you for that. Pray
for our shut-ins should be with them, watch over them. Help us,
Lord, to remember each other in prayer. We pray in Christ's
name, amen. Hymn number 463, All That Thrills
My Soul is Jesus. ? Who can cheer the heart like
Jesus ? ? By His presence so divine ? Oh, how blessed to call Him mine. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me. Grace of God beyond degree. Mercy higher than the heaven. Deeper than the deepest sea. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. is more than life to me. When the fairies dropped in thousand,
in my blessed Lord I'd sleep. What a wonderful ? Never can a mortal know ? How
my sin, though red like brimstone ? Can be whiter than the snow
? Oh, that lives my soul is Jesus ? He is more than life to me He is all in all to me. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me. In my blessing Lord. and glorify the King. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me. My blessed Lord, I sing. Let us pray. Father, again we approach
in the name of Christ, our blessed Savior, that sweet and precious
and unspeakable gift that you've given to all your people. And
with him, you've freely given them everything. We have need
of nothing. We are complete in Him. All that
exists is ours as we are joint heirs with Him. And it's all
by a free gift. We didn't earn it. We could never
merit it. But you gave it freely to us
by your grace. Let our giving reflect our understanding. of how gracious you've been to
us. We pray in Christ's name, amen. You. you I can't remember the number of
times I've preached from this particular passage of scripture.
The first chapter and the second chapter of Ephesians has been
numerous. But I often find myself going
back to it because it feels like a warm blanket on a cold night.
It's sweet, tender, and a blessing to every sinner saved by grace.
It's wondrous language. Solid and absolute. unbreakable
and immovable it's divine poetry really and
each standard is as perfect as it gets the beauty about the reading
of this passage is that it cannot be misunderstood it cannot possibly confuse anyone
it cannot be twisted When reading this passage, only
one of two things will take place. You'll either believe it or you
won't. It's that simple. The language is sure. It is absolute. We find it nestled in the middle
of two chapters that leave the reader in no doubt as to how
God saves sinners. you know anything of chapter
one you know that that is a picture of God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit working for the salvation of His people and
saving them completely giving them all things necessary even
sealing them with the Holy Spirit as the purchased possession of
God these verses are about sinners having been saved by the will
and power and the grace of God through the righteous, propitious,
substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is about
sinners who ARE saved. That's what it says in the last
parenthetical phrase in verse 4. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us, where He loved us,
even when we were dead in sin, excuse me, verse 5, when we were
dead in sin, as they have quickened us together with Christ by grace,
ye are saved. That speaks of a present tense,
salvation. You are saved. It is about sinners
who are passive in their salvation, because even their faith and
their works are a product of sovereign predestinating grace,
according to verse 10 of chapter 2. This is the only thing that
will do for ruined sinners. It will mean nothing to someone
who feels that he has something to offer God or that he possesses
a spark of divinity that only needs a little religious fanning
to burst into flame, the flame of faith, or to someone who believes
that he can will himself from being dead to being alive again. This salvation is for dead folks. impotent, hopeless sinners. And
though they magnificently benefit from its exercise upon them,
in truth, their salvation is actually designed and intended
for something else altogether. The salvation of dead, ruined,
Satan-enamored sinners, who by nature differ nothing from those
who will spend eternity in hell, is that salvation is accomplished
for the glory of the grace of God that's why it's done that's
why you're saved you're nothing special but the fact that God
has saved you glorifies his grace because you're nothing special
and nothing to you God has so meticulously ordered and performed
this salvation that the sinner the saved sinner is actually
made to exist for his glory it says that in chapter one in verse
twelve that ye should be exist for the glory of God that's why
you're here for the glory of God and let me say this whether
you trust him whether you are among the elect or not you will
glorify him you will glorify him in his mercy and his grace
or you will glorify him in his wrath and justice but all men
are made for his glory but the elect are specially made to glorify
his grace What must have been our sad estate, how empty and
useless we must have been that the salvation wrought for us,
a search that's a singular reason for our existence, is to glorify
God, to glorify His grace. This world spends much of its
existence trying to find a reason why men are here on this earth.
Seems to be a confusing thing nowadays. Folks want to assign
some puny purpose to their vacuous insignificance. existence. The
believer ponders no such questions. He knows why he is here. He is
here in his dusty frame. He is saved by grace so that
no man can ever question that salvation of such a one must
be by grace alone. This is the infallible declaration
that one who has been graced by God possesses no merit at
all and can produce no merit before God. This means that the
one who has been graced is utterly ruined, hapless, feckless and
hopeless and has neither desire nor ability nor even an inclination
toward anything other than fulfilling his most desire or most base
inclinations. If we are saved, we are saved
by grace. That's what this passage says
and every other passage that deals with the grace of God in
Scripture. And if we are saved by grace, we had nothing to do
with our salvation. We were just here because God
put us here and then He showed us mercy and grace. We didn't
ask for it. We weren't looking for it. But
we were thankful when we got it. because that grace also taught
us why we needed that grace. It is hard to believe grace. No, it's not hard to believe
grace. It's impossible to believe grace unless you've been saved
by it. You can't believe it unless you've
been saved by it. And if you've been saved by it,
it's impossible to believe anything else. it's impossible. Verse 8 begins with the word
FOR. It says, This FOR by grace are you saved through faith in
that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. This word FOR
means BECAUSE. There is a CAUSE in our being
saved by grace. Verses 1 through 3 make it painfully
clear that there's nothing in us or about us that's the cause
of grace. We're dead in trespasses and
sin and quickened together, raised from the grave by God And we
were folks who followed Satan in the course of this world and
were by nature the same nature as all those who perish in eternal
hell. But then verse 4 says, But God,
but God who is rich in mercy, for with a great love were with
he loved us. Everything about us in this passage
in verses one and two is described here would necessarily cause
us to wind up in eternal torment, forever separated from God. And
since we are saved by grace, the cause of it is plainly in
spite of what we are. What we are by birth and practice,
what we are by choice and affinity and inclination and nature is
purely and entirely against God on every and any conceivable
level. Our course is like water being
poured on the ground. It will ever take the course
of least resistance and it will ever flow downward. It will ever
flow downward. Our career is like a lifelong
all-consuming race to be the gold medalist in the marathon
of malfeasance. We're like a speeding boulder
We careen at ever-increasing breakneck velocity, ever downward
toward the abyss of the dam. And we're not steering that rock.
We are blissfully ignorant passengers, driven by doom, driven by the
prince of the power of the air. And he knows what he's doing.
He's not asleep at the wheel. Nothing about us or exuding from
us could ever be the cause of grace. For, because, by grace, ye are
saved. In our text in verse 8 it says,
Because by grace ye are saved, the cause of grace is found in
the source of grace, the heart of God, the heart of the God
of all grace. But God, it says, who is rich
in mercy for His great love, wherewith He loved us. Now there
ain't no measure to that love. There's no way us puny human
beings in our weak and paltry and ever-changing love can ever
understand that kind of love that is absolute and unconditional
and has always been there. He has loved us with an everlasting
love, it says, and therefore he's drawn us to himself because
he loved us with everlasting love. He doesn't love everyone. Scripture makes that clear. He
hates the workers of iniquity. Jacob have I loved and Esau have
I hated. And these were two brothers who
had done neither good and evil that the purpose of election
might stand. He saith unto the elders shall serve the younger.
Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. That's what he said. Hated. That's quoted twice in
Scripture. First in Malachi chapter 3. the word hated there in the original
means a vehement active killing hatred in the New Testament the word
is translated hatred in Romans chapter 9 is to utterly disregard we would
rather be actively hated than utterly disregarded Jacob have
I loved And Esau has never even entered my thoughts. But somebody was loved. These
spoken of here, these sinners saved by grace, they were loved.
They were loved by the great love wherewith he loved. It's
the great love of God, an unchanging and wondrous thing. There is
that blessed descriptive conjunction, though we were ripe for hell,
but God intervened. God can be and is the cause of
grace, and that grace comes from merciful love. He is rich in
mercy so that his mercy is sufficient, even exceeding excess, perfectly
fit to meet the required need of a wretched lost sinner. sin hath entered in or the law
hath entered in that sin might abound but where grace where sin abounded
grace abounded more where sin abounded that's us
the grace of God abounded more that's God He is so rich that
no matter how undeserving and sinful you are If He has marked
you for that mercy, mercy's account will never be drained or even
minutely diminished because He shows it to you. His love is
great love and true love and therefore it is effectual to
the salvation of the soul according to 1 John chapter 3 verse 18. This great love is sufficient.
God's love sees the sinner that He loves and saves him. He has the wherewithal and the
ability to meet his needs, and he meets his needs. And anything
other than that kind of love is hate and self. If you love
somebody, you will die that they might live. And you may. I had friends who
died in Vietnam, good friends, neighbors who died in Vietnam. we can say then they loved her
country and the proof that is they died for their country their
country didn't love them much during that time but they love
their country when I raised my hand during that period of time
between 1966 and 1970 and swore an oath to the Constitution of
the United States I did it because I love my country I love my country
still doesn't love me much but I still love it No doubt that a person who dies
for someone is an example of loving them. No greater love
than this, that a man would lay down his life for his friend,
our Lord said. No greater love. No greater love. I saw a man the other day, a
young man who was terribly burned. His face was awfully scarred.
He was scarred because he was walking down the street and a
house was burning. And he ran in and saved three
children's lives. He didn't know those children,
but you could actually say he loved them. Because he was willing
to die for them. Our Lord loved us. He said, hereby
we perceive, understand, grasp, know the love of God that he
laid down his life for us. This is how we know. He loved
us. It's not a 50-50 love. That's
what people talk about today. I love you if you love me. We
didn't love him. We hated him. He loved us. Our love is nothing in comparison. Our love for him now is only
because he loves us. We love him because he first
loved us. We do not have a generated love for him naturally in our
hearts. We hate him if he loves us or if we love him because
he loved us first. It's not unrequited love as most
of religion makes it. He loves people, can't do anything
about it, or won't do anything about it, or won't do unless
people let him. That ain't love. Ain't no love
there. Especially if you have the wherewithal
to take care of this business, and he does. It's not angst-ridden
love like a teenager. It's great love. Great love. And it will be expressed because
great love is expressed. Indeed, it has been expressed
in the salvation of those who are loved. Spurgeon wrote a message
one time called, The Love of God. Only the loved ones know. Only the loved ones know. Those
whom God has loved, and that is the correct sense, He has
loved, wherewith He loved us. He has saved us by grace, those
He loved, He's saved, that's what it says. For with the great
love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses
and sins, He quickened us together with Christ by grace are you
saved. Made us alive though we were
dead. Why? That great love. That great
love. as we think we are somehow were
there or despised all had another disclaimer to the cause of grace
even when we were dead and seen even when we're a pile of corrupting
rotting putrefaction even when the only fifth thing to do with
us and they go home and tell us and cover us up barriers out
of the way and forget us even the in fact precisely the God
raised us from the dead. He quickened us together with
Christ. This too serves as a heavenly
disclaimer to us, being the CAUSE of this grace, this declares
that we rose from the grave when Christ did, and as you well know,
we did not yet exist in the purpose, except in the purpose and plan
of God at this time, so we couldn't have had anything to do with
it. And this is bookended by a proclamation that this was
accomplished by the grace of God, in divine parenthesis, God
in search for our distinctive and necessary education by grace. Are you saved? Are you saved? Are is a state of being verb. in a state of being of the graced
ones is that they are saved. This is their state of being.
They are saved. They are not going to be saved. They could not be saved. There
is not a probability that they could be saved. They are saved! What Christ did on Calvary's
tree was an accomplished redemption. When Moses and Elijah came back
across time and talked to Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration,
they spoke of Him of the redemption that He should accomplish at
Jerusalem. The death that He should accomplish.
That was His redemption. The price paid. They spoke of
His death, what He should accomplish. It was an accomplishing death. This declares that we rose when
Christ rose. There is no future walk down
an aisle here or decision to be made. When we were raised
together with Christ, it says we are saved. When we were raised
together with Christ, present tense. Not only has grace raised
us together with Christ from the dead, He has raised us all
the way to heaven. That is what this passage says.
The beggar has been raised from the dunghill to sit among princes.
The believer is in Christ now and is where Christ is now. The believer is not offered this
lofty position. He is made to sit in heavenly
places in Jesus Christ right now. If you are a child of God,
you are here on earth, yes you are, but you are also seated
in Christ at the right hand of the Father even now. I can't
begin to fathom the glory of this. It is too wonderful for
me. Christ said the same thing to Nicodemus. He said, you know,
who you're talking to here on earth is also in heaven. How
can that be? I don't know. It's a little bit
too wonderful for me. I think David, often contemplating
the greatness of God and the wonder of His grace, said something
like this, how precious. Also are thy thoughts unto me,
O God. How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they
are more in number than the sand when I awake. I am still with
thee, still with thee, on earth and in heavenly places at the
same time. My, my, that smacks of space-time continuum, doesn't
it? What Einstein could not or could
only theorize the believer experiences by the grace of God. God is the cause of grace and
bless His holy name. He even declares the reason why
He has bestowed grace on us. That in the ages to come, forever
and ever, for all eternity, He might reveal the fact that saving
us was an act of exceeding riches of His grace and mercy and kindness
toward us. That's going to be the theme
of heaven to be shown. We have so many
things, experiences in life. The older we get, the more we
experience. Sometimes we scratch our heads
and say, why that? Why not? Sometimes we're like the old
predestination who stubbed his toe, predestinarian who stubbed
his toe and looked down and said, boy, I'm glad that's over with.
A lot of times we say the same thing, I'm glad that one's over
with. We don't know the reason for things, we will know. Forever, He's gonna show us the
reason why we're saved in kindness, and mercy toward us through Christ,
what he's had since all eternity. By grace we are saved. When all
is said and done, this will be the song of heaven. Saved by
grace. Over in Zechariah 4, it talks
about Zerubbabel, who's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, putting
in the cornerstone and putting in the headstone of the temple.
That's the church. That's the people of God. That's
the elect from the foundation of the world. with shouts of
grace, grace unto it. This is how He builds that temple,
by grace, and the shout will be THIS TEMPLE IS BUILT BY GRACE,
GRACE, GRACE UNTO THE TEMPLE OF GOD! For by grace ye are saved
through faith, Faith, that mysterious thing that causes great sinners
to understand and rest in the inalterable fact that God alone
is the author and finisher of their faith, their salvation.
Men speak of faith as if it is their salvation. They speak of
my faith, our faith. When the Lord spoke of being
saved by faith, He spoke of believing something. What does faith believe? Faith believes that you're saved
by grace. Faith embraces what God's Word
said about grace. Faith believes and understands. That's what faith does. Because
God has given us faith, then believing is evidence. Faith
is the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of things
not seen. Again, our Lord makes it clear
that faith is not something that is naturally in man. Faith is
not in ourselves. We're not born with faith. It's
not something we can work up. Now, you can work up natural
faith or human faith. People have all kinds of faith.
They have faith in faith. I've heard people actually say
that. I've got faith in my faith. People have faith in nature. They have faith in a whole bunch
of stuff. They have faith in each other. Some people have
faith in God. How'd that happen? By grace or
say through faith? Well, not of yourselves. That's
pretty clear, isn't it? That faith is not of yourselves, lest you should boast. You mean
if I was able to work up my own faith, then I would be a proud
and boastful person? Listen to folks. Those who believe
they have worked up their faith, they're very proud of it. They're
so proud that they say, I can reject God or accept Him. That's
pretty proud, ain't it? Let me tell you something about
your Savior. Whoever is the person that is the final decider in
your salvation is your Savior. Now, if you are saved by your
free will, by your decision, or you walking down an aisle,
then you are your Savior. But if you are saved by grace,
without you doing anything, then God is your Savior. And that's just a fact. Who's your
Savior? By grace you are saved. through faith and that not of
yourself. The source of faith is the same
as the source of grace. The cause of faith is the same
as the cause of grace. It's God Himself. If you are
a believer, God alone has made you so. Yet another disclaimer
is declared here. Faith is not a work. It's not
a work. It's not of works, lest any man
should boast. In fact, indeed, according to
Romans, Chapter 4, it is the ABSENCE of WORKS! It is WORKS
LEFT OFF! Look over at Romans, Chapter
4. Here it talks about the FATHER
of the faithful, Abraham, and how it was that he was RIGHTEOUS. In Romans, Chapter 4, it says,
What shall we say, then, that Abraham our father, as pertaining
to the flesh, hath found? What did he find by his flesh? For if Abraham were justified
works, he hath whereof to glory. He can glory in the fact that
he's done something, but not before God. For what saith the
Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it
was counted unto him for righteousness. What was the occasion of that
belief? Well, he believed God a lot of times in Scripture.
He believed God enough to leave the Ur of Chaldees and follow
God's Word. He believed God that Isaac would be born. But in Genesis
15, God took him out and said, Look at the stars. Do you see
the stars? Can you count them? He said, No. How about the sands
of the sea? Can't put them in a numerical
order? No, I can't do that. So shall
your seed be. And we know according to Galatians
3 that seed is Christ and that nation born a day in Him. multitude
a number that no man can number he believed God concerning what? the seed concerning Christ and
it was counted to him for righteousness it says now to him that worketh
is the reward not reckoned of grace but of dead if you've got
it by your doing God owes you that and it's not by grace It
is by works. But to him that worketh not,
that lazy son of a gun, that do nothing, him that worketh
not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith
is counted for righteousness. Even as David also described
the blessedness of a man unto whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without work. he imputes righteousness without
works. Had nothing to do with works, God imputed righteousness,
charged you with righteousness, charged you of Israel's righteousness.
How did he do that? By making Christ to be your righteousness.
Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose
sins are covered. Blessed is the man. I love this
verse of Scripture. Look at it. Blessed is the man
to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Somebody says, You've been
blessed. Oh, yes! The Lord will not charge
me with sin. The Lord will never put sin on
my account. That's what it is to be blessed.
What a thing! This removes any possibility
of boasting then. I can't boast if it's not by
works but by God's grace alone through faith. Where is boasting
then, Paul said in Romans chapter 3, after saying God has righteously
saved men through the justifying blood of Jesus Christ, he said
where is boasting then? It is excluded. Even our works are the result
of predestinating grace. I had a conversation with a young
man about this recently. Our works are predestinated.
What does that mean? They are determined before. What
does that mean? You say, what are they? Stop looking. That's where you go wrong. Stop
looking and say, is this a work? Don't do that. Get up in the
morning, have your coffee and a cigarette if you smoke, and
go out and live your life. And love God. Do as you please. And I'll guarantee you, in that
lifetime, there'll be things you do for God that you don't
even know about. because he's ordained it, and somewhere out
there there's work, and you're going to run into it, and you'll
do it because God has equipped you for the work He's predestinated
in your case. That's what it says in verse
10. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.
This is all by grace. It was Latin during the Reformation,
five things that they're talking about, five solos. They called
them Solo Christus, Solo Gratia, Solo Fide, Solo Scriptura, Solo
Deo Gloria. What does that mean? Salvation
by Christ alone, grace alone, through faith alone, revealed
in the Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone. By grace ye are saved. Father, bless us through our
understanding of praying in Christ's name. Amen.