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Okay, this morning I'd like to continue my message, uh, on Ephesians chapter one. Just a very brief review. Uh, we pointed out in the first six verses that Paul was an apostle by the will of God, not by the will of man. And we looked at the grace of God in, in the second verse, and, and that God is gonna give us grace and peace if we look to him, no matter what our circumstances are, we can be in, um, even in a re-education camp, a Russian prison camp, we can be in the most difficult and dire circumstances, and God is going to provide for us. We looked in verse three that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, not most, not some.
Every spiritual blessing that is available in heaven is, is already given to us. We don't climb the ladder of more privilege, and it it's given to us at the very beginning, so that even a a baby Christian can exploit these principles. In Ephesians four, we saw that we are chosen in Christ. We're not chosen for some unknown reason and then put in Christ, which is the way Calvinism looks at us. God chose Christ, and in in Christ, he chose everyone that believed in him. So the election is in Christ, and this election rolls out in the flow of time.
Everyone that believes is put in Christ the moment they believe, and then they're part of that package that God chose in eternity past. And that we are chosen, not in and of itself, as just as an end so that we can win the, the heaven and eternal life lottery, but he chose us to be holy and without blame. When you get saved, you are putting yourself on a path, and God is putting you on a path where you are going to walk into greater degrees of holiness and greater degrees of guiltlessness. In verse five, we are see that we are predestined to the adoption of sons, and we saw that this adoption, that right now we have the promise of do- adoption, and that's why we can call out to God, Abba Father.
It's like saying daddy. But there is a future day in which this is going to be ratified, and and we saw in the scriptures in Romans chapter eight that this day of, of the adoption is the day of the resurrection. That's when we are brought into God's family, not merely by promise, but we now bear the resurrection image of the resurrection Christ. And then we went into verse six and we looked at the glory of his grace by which we were accepted in the beloved. What a p- what a privilege this is. If you are in the beloved, you are accepted, and you are accepted for no other reason than that you are in the beloved.
We can increase our, uh, faithfulness or our devotion by availing ourselves of the things that are given to us, and that can increase our reward in heaven. But this isn't a, a pass or fail for eternal life. That's already settled. This isn't a pass or fail for being accepted in the beloved. That is already settled. So this is a glorious grace, and it ought to excite every one of them. So having gone through that, uh, little reminder to get us flowing into the flow of the message, let's move into verse seven. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.
This is a, a precious thought. Again, this brings us right back to this whole in him concept. When you go through the book of Ephesians, you realize how important the concept of in Christ and in him is. And as you walk through the Christian life and the Christian faith, you begin to realize how important this in Christ and in him is, because everything we have, everything we get, we get in Christ. Everything that Israel is going to get, they get in Christ. Everything that any human being is ever going to get, they get in Christ. There's nothing we can get outside of Christ, except for condemnation and judgment. Jesus is the story.
You know, I remember as a young believer wrestling with this whole thing about looking for the true church. I wasn't really looking for a perfect church, because I think I understood there was no perfect church, but looking for the, the true church, the, the church that was more biblical than everybody else. And as I started going down that path, I just ran into difficulty after difficulty after difficulty, and discouragement after discouragement after discouragement, as I realized, you know what? I think this is barking up the wrong tree. Yes, there are churches that are more doctrinally and practically faithful than other churches, but every church on the planet that believes the fundamental doctrines of the faith and has their eyes fixed on Jesus, every one of them is a true church.
They're not all true to the same degree, but they are all true. And why are they true churches? Is it because they got all their doctrinal ducks lined up perfectly? No. It's because they hold on to Jesus. Jesus is the story. He is the way of salvation. Now, I love this line too, through his blood, the forgiveness of sin. I remember as a young believer wrestling with this whole idea of repentance.
What if you don't repent enough, not hard enough, or not enough stuff? And I'm not saying that there's no place to ever wrestle with questions like that. Because obviously people in our day and age have played some very fast and loose handlings on the gospel, and they've left repentance out of the gospel. But you start going down this path of, of what degree do you have to repent, and how far do you have to pent, and how sincere do you have to repent? If you're not careful, you won't go very far down that path, and you're going to start undermining faith.
And, and the issue of salvation is through his blood. Our faith is in a crucified savior, and it's only when we've embraced this crucified savior, it's only in the path of grace and faith that we actually find the ability, the will, the wherewithal to repent like we're supposed to repent. I know by my own experience, if I get a, a spirit of repentance worked up in, in my own self, it might look better for a few days than the real McCoy. But what's the difference?
Anything I work up, whip up in the flesh is gonna die in the flesh. The flesh dies. It fails. But if it's something that's truly wrought by the Spirit of God and- and by the Word of God, and it's on the path of faith in the crucified Messiah, now we've got a work going that cannot die. It cannot be stopped. You can slow it down temporarily, but you're dealing with a God who's a gracious, merciful, and disciplining father. And he will correct the problem. And he will motivate you to bear forth fruit like you're supposed to, and to repent like you're supposed to.
But I say, I say this to bring out that, that it's m- my justification, my forgiveness of sins, your justification, your forgiveness of sins is not hanging in the balance because God's taking the gold standard of repentance and putting it on this side of the balance, and he takes your effort on repentance and puts it in this side of the balance, says, I hate to break the bad news to you, but you are two point three grams short. Sorry. It just doesn't work that way. And I'm thankful for that. Because what I thought I was for a repenting believer when I was a zealous babe in the Lord, and what I realize I am as a repenting believer some forty years later, not the same thing.
I used to give myself way too much credit for how zealous and devoted I really was. Fast forwards forty years, and what do I see? I see that in my best moments, no matter how high I really have climbed on the mountain of holiness, in my best moments, I'm weak and frail and inconsistent and tainted. And if it wasn't for the grace of God, the grace of the crucified one who not only dies for us, but who lives for us, who's at the right hand of the Father as our high priest in heaven.
If it wasn't for this one, and the everlasting eternal blood on the altar in heaven, my efforts would fall short of the glory of God. Our efforts at repentance, as important as they are, if they're not built on the foundation of the blood of Christ, they're not worth much. Now, I also want to think about a different track on this blood of Christ and the forgiveness of sin.
Somewheres in eternity past, when the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit were communicating on their grand plan, and this plan involved the angelic realm and the human realm, and flinging out this massive universe and then making one planet that orbited around our sun, called the Earth, and then putting trees and life and plants and animals on it, and then dropping man in that picture, and then putting man in a situation where he's going to be tempted and fall, and where man is going to be a corrupt mass of sin, and then provide man with the way of salvation, and they're working on this plan.
They didn't come up with a plan that was religion. They didn't come up with a plan that was works. They came up with a plan that left the angels baffled. The angels were still baffled in the New Testament. The angels are still baffled today. The plan that the very God himself, the Son of God who spoke the universe into existence, who sustains the entire universe, that this God would leave the glories of heaven above and come down to to to earth and take on the body of a human being, the flesh of a human being.
And here's the creator of the universe coming out of his mother's womb, covered with afterbirth, and has the cord that has to be cut. He's, he's a infant human being, and then he grows up, and he's a human being, and then he dies on a cross for the sins of the world. Now the angels are still baffled, and to be honest, there's times when I look at this and I am just baffled. I'm not baffled in the sense of questioning the, the historical f- facts of the situation.
I'm just baffled that God could actually love the human race this much. Because God's love for the human race doesn't go down the Calvinist path where God actually hates the entire world, but by some mysterious transaction, because of the cross, he loves a tiny few. No. The Gospel of John is very clear. God so loved the whole world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes shall not perish but have everlasting life. For me to step back and to look at this massive, mind-boggling love that God has for the human race.
This love that went through all those thousands of years of rebellion and still sent his son into this world, and this love that since the cross has got two thousand years of garbage and nonsense, and now this stuff is, is neck deep and the, and the world is filled with insanity. And God's patience is still offering the cross to the world. That Christ left the glories of heaven to die for us. And so when he asks us to leave our things to live for him.
This isn't some massive colossal piece of religion he's asking us to do. This is simply walking in his footsteps. To leave your legitimate things, to some degree at any rate, and follow him in his eternal things. God help us all to do this better, to th- to think this way better, to walk in this better. In his redemption. According to the riches of his grace. We just talked about the riches of his love, and this is an insane amount of grace that we have given here.
Ephesians one eight, which he made to abound towards us in all wisdom and prudence. I just want to illustrate this with a picture, that God's wisdom and prudence makes his grace abound to us. One of my favorite passages in scriptures in Lamentations were his mercies are new every morning. And what I want you to think about for your walk with the Lord is picture that his mercies and his grace are like the manna that we see in the Old Testament story. And every day you can go out and collect fresh manna for the day.
And this was in his wisdom and prudence. When, when you have the infinite God with infinite wisdom and infinite discernment and discretion, and he comes up with this plan, the only reason that this plan is implemented is it is the best one, period. He didn't have another plan that he'd rather have done. He doesn't have three other options that he tried and they failed. This is the plan, perfectly designed, perfectly executed.
And when the day when that rapture trumpet blows, it won't be one second early or one second late. They'll be watching that heavenly stopwatch, and it's gonna hit the second, and it's go, and the trumpet will blow, and the Lord will descend, and he'll gather up his church, will be glorified, and it'll all be part of his eternal and infinite plan. Now we get to verses nine and ten. This is where I start to enter into a stuff that just... it just wows me to such a degree I can hardly talk about it, can hardly think about it.
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 fullness of times he might gather together all things in Christ, both of which are in heaven and which are on earth, in him. The mystery of his will. You know, in the Old Testament, we see it very plainly in most of the Old Testament, God's working with the nation of Israel, but here and there, there's stuff that's sprinkled about his dealings with the Gentiles. And Israel never quite understood what their job responsibility was. They kind of looked at it like God gave them a unique privilege, and they didn't have to share it with anybody.
It was just them and God. But God really intended for that message that he given to the Jews to be a blessing to the entire Gentile world. And they didn't fail in it a hundred percent, but they failed in it by and large. They failed in that. They didn't share this blessing with the Gentiles. And this was the mystery of God's will that he wanted his program of redemption, of which that what he was doing in Israel was just the first step in the first stage. He wanted this to go to the entire world and to bless the entire world. Well, now when we come into the, into the New Testament, this mystery of his will is greatly revealed.
We see that he wants to gather into one, into Christ, people from every tongue and tribe and nation on the planet and bring them into one in Christ. And it's, this is according to his good pleasure. He's not under some kind of moral obligation that's bigger than he is. This is because he is pleased, he's happy to redeem mankind. And this brings us right back to this whole thought in John, this massive, colossal love that would set this ball rolling. You know, I think one of the biggest problems that man has in the ungodly world is they don't realize this, how much love God has for the human race.
Your average human being goes through life, they think he's kind of a bully. They don't really trust him. They think he's not out for their good, and they think that, that if they want to have fun and have a good life and a happy life, they got to go do their own thing. And they look at God like somebody who's just a party pooper, and he's always trying to keep them from having fun and having a good time. And what they don't realize is that if they would listen to God and turn to God and go God's way, they would actually find more happiness and more fulfillment than they find when they go their own way. And it's God's pleasure to make man happy. It's not God's pleasure to make men unhappy.
But this mystery, you'll never understand. This mystery of God's love he's pouring out, this mystery of God's grace that he's pouring out, unless you are born again. This is not revealed to flesh and blood. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, Simon Peter. This is revealed to you by the Holy Spirit. According to his good pleasure. You know what this implies? That God is just as excited to give us great blessing in Jesus Christ as we are to receive it.
The, the way I can enter into this and really get a picture of this is I can remember when my boys were little, little enough that they would just be jumping up and down and ready to explode with excitement when she'd give them presents. You know, when they get a little older, oh, that's cool, dad, then they're off doing their own thing. But when they're young, they're just, they just explode with excitement. But when, when they're busy exploding with excitement because I gave them something they're excited to receive, I'm just as excited that they're excited. And so when God's got this plan of salvation in the Lord Jesus, which he's unfolding in the first stages now, and we come to the Lord Jesus, and our sins are forgiven, and we're given an eternal inheritance, someday we're going to step into this eternal inheritance.
And at every step of the way, as we find ourselves excited at the good things we give, that we're given in Christ Jesus, God the Father is just as excited to give them to us. In a passage I've referred to a few times in scripture, we read in the scriptures that there is joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repents. And I don't know how many times I've heard preachers mess this passage up and say, see, the angels have emotions too. Excuse me, that's not what that passage is talking about. This is joy that's in the presence of the angels. This is joy the angels are witnessing. This is the Father's joy and excitement over a sinner that repents.
And the angels are, are looking at this, and they're looking on with the same kind of bafflement that they're baffled over the entire program of redemption. They're baffled over Christ coming down to earth and being a man, and they're baffled over the cross. How could the eternal God be so excited over this sinful human being? It's because it's his pleasure to redeem a sinner. Now, God is, is the scriptures say God is love and God is light. God is holiness, and he's, and he is. God is love and he's light. And when God redeems a sinner, his holiness is perfectly vindicated in that sinner, and his love is fulfilled in that sinner.
But when a sinner refuses to believe the gospel, and they end up in eternal hell fire. God's holiness is still perfectly vindicated, but his love for that sinner is unfulfilled. In other words, what this boils down to is God gets more glory when a sinner is redeemed than when a sinner is condemned. Now that throws a monkey wrench in some people's theology, but I believe this is the truth of the living God. God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked.
And God wishes that no man should perish. So he brings us right back. God's not pleased when people have to go to hell. His holiness is vindicated. God is not pleased when the sinner's judged. His holiness is vindicated. But God is pleased to try and redeem mankind, and God is pleased when a sinner is redeemed. What a blessing that is. And that he's purposed this in himself, we read. Which he purposed in himself. You know, sometimes when we start getting an idea to go in a particular direction, we, we might buy a book and figure out how to go in this direction, like how to start a business or, or how to, how to, to be an EMT or how to be a doctor or how to be a lawyer, and we have to do some reading and studying, and we got to get outside help and outside counsel, right?
Well, when God comes to this project, he didn't go into the tavern and talk with Frank. He didn't Google it. He sat down on his throne and he counseled in his own heart. And this is intelligent and intentional on God's part. I think this is part of the thing the angels are so baffled about. Why would God become a human being? Why would God die on the cross? Why would God go to such lengths for these human beings when every last one of them rebelled, and for us, only one third of us fell, and he didn't do nothing for us, and here every last one of these creatures fell, and he's going to this length?
What's going on here? They're baffled. I don't know if we'll ever fully enter into this, other than entering into it in the sense of appreciating it. The last line here says that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ. I think we're in the dispensation of the fullness of times right now. When the fullness of time was come, we read in Galatians four, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law.
Why did he have to be made of a woman and made under the law? Well, he had to be a human being or he couldn't redeem mankind. And he had to be under the law so that man could be freed from the law. What a blessing this is. And now in Christ we are dead to the law. It's tragic that so many people today have this idea we need to go back to the law, and they bind themselves by the Sabbath, and they bind themselves by the da- da- dietary laws. And they bind themselves to the feasts.
And in Christ, male and female, Jew or Greek, Scythian, barbarian, Greek or Roman, Chinese, Korean, it's irrelevant. We're all one in Christ. What a blessing this is. In Ephesians one eleven, in whom we have an obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. If we, if you are a believer, you're predestined.
And as I pointed out last week, predestination in the Bible is never unto salvation. Predestination is always because you're saved, you get a predestination blessing. The saved are predestined to a lot of very cool things, and this one here is we are predestined to an inheritance. Heirs of God, we read in Romans chapter eight, co-heirs with Christ Jesus. In, in, um, Revelation, we read that we will inherit all things. And I've been down this road many times in my messages, but I never get tired of going down this road.
If we once enter into the fact that the afflictions we go through in this life, that they are light compared to the glory that we're going to receive, and that the troubles that we suffer are for a short time compared to the eternity that we're going to receive. And we start entering into the fact that we have an inheritance guaranteed to us. That the poorest saint on eternity, in eternity, is going to be wealthier than all the wealthiest men that ever lived in the history of the world. Just enter into this. This inheritance we read in First Peter one four, is incorruptible and undefiled and does never fade away.
It's incapable of being corrupted. It can't be morally corrupted. It can't be rusted or oxidized. It can't be eaten by moths. It can't get mold or mildew. It's undefiled. There's no moral taint in it. It th- it's not like unrighteous mammon. You know, the money that we handle, somewhere along that line, that money's tainted. Even if we don't taint it, it's tainted. Even the very days which we are in are evil.
But this is undefiled, and it will not fade away. I often think of this. I've have possessions. I one time had a pair of mountain climbing boots. I put a, bought a, paid a ton of money for them, and then I, I got, uh, an injury, a back injury, and I couldn't use the brand new mountain climbing boots I'd bought. So they sat in my closet for like ten years, and I didn't get to use them. And I used them once with my boys, and then they sat in the closet again for another four or five years, Ten years. I can't remember how long it was, a long time.
And when I finally took those boots out and wore them, they fell apart. Just sitting in the closet for years, they wore out. How's that happen? These are hundreds of dollar mountain climbing boots. And I get to wear them one time? You know, and you put shingles on your house, and it looks really awesome for the first couple years, and about ten years out they start to fade, get a little curling. Twenty years out, they're supposed to be thirty-year year shingles, and twenty years out they look like they're hit forty or fifty.
Gotta replace them. That's what this life is all about. Things fade, things decay, things break. We are entering into an inheritance, and I love this thought. I can get together with some friends, whether it's on a Northwoods lake or whether it's on a lake in the mountains, we can build a cabin, stack up some stone that we gathered for footings, and build this rough log cabin and put a roof on it, put windows in it, put curtains on it. A thousand years later, ten thousand years later, the porch is still perfectly level, it's not sagging. The roof isn't sagging. The shingles are just as good as the day we put them on.
The curtains are not faded. And if you're gone for months or a year or two and you come back five, ten years later, you don't have three inches of dust on the table. I like these thoughts of eternity. And this is predestined according to the purpose of him who works everything after the counsel of his will. If God is determined to give this to you, nothing in you or the world can stop it from coming to pass. Ephesians 1:12, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory.
I get excited about this privilege. We are our set purpose in eternity, and it's starting now because we've entered into eternity, whether you thought about it or not. You already have eternal life. You've already entered into eternal life. That we should be to the praise of his glory. Our job in eternity is going to be praising his glory. And how's this going to unfold? He's going to be revealing his glory to us. Step by step by step by step by step for all of eternity, and he will never unfold or unroll or unpack the last cool thing about his glory.
No matter where your interests lie, no matter what your job description is in eternity, you will never cease being wowed by his glory, so that when you stand before the Lord, it will always be fresh worship. That's real praise coming off your lips. That's real praise coming out of your. You're not ever going to have to, to get up on some morning in eternity when we're scheduled for formal worship and thinking, wow, I'm just not feeling it today. That will never happen. It shouldn't happen down here if we keep our eyes focused on how cool and how awesome he is. So let's close with verses thirteen and fourteen.
In whom you also trusted after you heard the word of his truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory. Now, I want to point out something here. This is another one of these passages that is fatal to Calvin. The order here is you hear the gospel, you believe the gospel, and you are sealed with the Holy Spirit. It's not flipped. You don't get saved first and then believe. You believe, and then you get saved.
And the spirit of promise, this is a guarantee. If you've ever bought a car, you can put some promissory money down on that car, or some promise money down on the house. They hold it for you. This is a very similar thing. When, when God puts his Holy Spirit in you at the moment of salvation, this is God guaranteeing. This is a contract, an eternal, infinite contract that God is going to complete this purchase. He's going to complete this redemption. You are owned by him. We are not our own, we are bought with the price. And what a blessing this is.
God is going to redeem us. And if the Holy Spirit is in us, he's already contracted to do it, and he is not going to break his own contract. This is a strong argument for eternal security of the believer. The guarantee that he's going to buy us and the guarantee of our inheritance. Until the redemption of the purchased product. Someday, some glorious day, we're going to be going about our business. We might be sleeping, we might be awake, we might be eating or talking or working, but that trumpet is gonna blow, and in a moment we're gonna be changed, and we're gonna meet the Lord in the air, and we're gonna go off to be in the Father's house in glory.
And our body is gonna feel like lead weight is just gone, just dropped. I can remember when I was in several instances where, you know, when I go after a hard football practice when I was a young man, at the end of practice you take all those pads and equipment off, and it just feels so good to be out of that stuff. Or I can remember in the army having a a nasty heavy rucksack, hiking in nasty rugged ground, and you get to the end of that hike and you finally get to take that pack off, and you just feel so light-footed.
And I've often thought, this is what it's going to be like in the resurrection. We're going around this body of heaviness and, and, and brokenness and, and things aren't working right, and we're always feeling tired, and we're... and all of a sudden, boom, we're changed. And we're in a body that's light and fleet-footed again for the rest of eternity. In that day, we're going to be shouting for glory. Everyone will be Pentecostal for the first half hour. We'll be good. All right, well, let's close with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for all the precious blessings you've given us in the Lord Jesus.
We pray, Lord, that we wouldn't take them for granted, that we'd have our eyes focused on them, that we would look to you and look to your word and look to your Holy Spirit, that we'd be more and more conformed to your holy image, that we would perfect holiness and the fear of God, that we would share your gospel with the world around us, and that we would have our eyes fixed fast on the day when that trumpet blows and we are gathered up to be with you forever as your adopted children and as your heirs in a glorified body, in a glorious eternity, with no more pain, no more sorrow, no more trials, no more troubles, no more tears, no more world, no more devil, no more stupidity and nonsense.
Lord, we long for that day, for the coming of your eternal kingdom and the resurrection. And we pray, Lord, that you would bless us in our pilgrim journeys now. Fire us and strengthen us and help us in Jesus' precious name. Amen.