Transcript

Let’s go back to Ephesians 1 this evening and finish what we started last time when I was looking at Ephesians 1:7-12 and talking about the riches of grace. Aren’t you thankful that we serve a holy God? One unlike us? One vastly superior to us? One to whom we can bow with confidence and yield to with joy? I don’t know what to think about these folks who want God just to be a little bit bigger form of us. Are you kidding me? A God who’s just a little bit like me but just a little bit stronger or something. How ridiculous. How absurd.

Ephesians 1. Paul is getting at this point that it’s all of God, it’s all of grace, and it’s all for his glory and he’s got everything working according to his plan and his timetable to achieve his perfect ends and somehow in grace he has chosen you and I to be a part of all that. That’s what Paul is getting at. Ephesians 1:7,

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight 9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, 12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.

I have a special affinity for the book of Ephesians because it was in the book of Ephesians many many years ago when God began to strongly convict me how we needed to make a lot of changes, in some sense, that a lot of the changes that we had made as a church were valid and true and we had to stay the course no matter what it looked like. And the book of Ephesians, I just don’t even know how to tell you how many hours of study and I’m not saying that’s reflected in great messages, that’s not my point, but I was in such a place as a pastor and it was just the sovereign divine plan of God for me to be in Ephesians and take us through Ephesians so many years ago. And perhaps it’s one of those books because it’s so foundational to what we as Baptist people are, and I say that in an historic sense, not in the contemporary sense; Baptists who historically were sovereign grace oriented and were new birth oriented and baptism always follows the new birth which is why the enemies of early Baptists gave them the name the Baptists or the baptizers because they rejected sprinkling of babies and said there has to be the new work of grace under the preaching of the Gospel and when there’s been a new birth and a person shows forth that evidence of that new birth as the Scripture describe, then we will baptize them and put them in our churches. So it’s really a great foundation stone in what we are as Grace Life Church and it’s been rich, rich, rich for me to look back over it again and study back through it again.

Anyway, we’re talking about the riches of grace starting in verse 7 here and he makes that interesting phrase, it’s just a brief review, he says it’s out of. Look at it there in verse 7 again, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” And it does not mean out of riches, it’s according to his riches and I gave you the illustration, again, that it’s not like you just put a big bucket of water of grace, it’s more like when they release the water out of the lock over there at Wilson Dam; they release that water until it’s all out and it’s back down to the level of the pool where the lock connects or the lower side of the lock. So it’s this gushing, swirling, abundant.

He goes further in verse 8 and he says, “He lavishes grace upon us.” Grace could have various definitions. Unmerited favor is certainly a good valid favor. It means that God has without any cause out of us, chose to favor us. He says, “I’m going to favor this one and there is nothing in that one that causes me or provokes me or entices me to do it, I just am God and I choose to do it.” And, again, it’s just not a token, it’s a lavishing; it’s a God-sized favoring; it’s a God-sized loving toward us. You know, I was just thinking this afternoon actually studying over this, how Paul’s expression, “the love of Christ controls us,” and as an earlier Christian, as an early pastor, I got that but I didn’t really get that but now after weeks and weeks and years and years and some decades now of studying and unfolding and unpacking and the word of God unleashing the glorious level after level, precept of precept, truth after truth of all that God’s done for us, the love of Christ begins to control us and that’s maturity. We don’t ever fully arrive at maturity but we’re not just obligated. We need accountability, sure. We need to check on each other, sure. But as we mature, the love of Christ controls us. We can’t get over this wonderful lavishing abundant grace that’s been poured out upon us as Christians.

Now, in I. we talked about the grace of redemption. He uses that word in verse 7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood.” Redemption is that concept of being bought back from the slave market and stretching out to get a systematic understanding of our slavery that we are redeemed out of. We know we were enslaved to sin; the enslaving cords of sin held us in bondage. We were enslaved to Satan’s kingdom; the Bible says we were in the kingdom of darkness. And then we were enslaved to self. That’s why the world you and I live in is going down the tubes so fast because people are enslaved to themselves. They are enslaved to their fallen depravity and wicked lust and in order to live with themselves, they know they can’t overcome that enslavement so they just try to put a new cosmetic front on it and splash an acceptable sign on the front of their lust and their indulgence and call it good and call it wonderful and celebrate it and have pride about it. So we are proud today about the things that we shouldn’t even mention in quietness because men are enslaved to themselves. There is only one power that can enable you to stop loving your lustful self and that’s the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it causes men to be the kind of men that want to have their sins dealt with, not accommodated, celebrated and encouraged.

So we have enslavement to sin, enslavement in Satan’s kingdom, enslavement to self, but then Christ redeemed us, bought us off of that slave block, that auction block. This kind, loving stranger came up and he purchased us and made us from that to become our own. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if John Wesley was right and you get saved and a little while later you get another zap from the Holy Spirit and you don’t sin anymore. You know, that would be kind of nice, wouldn’t it? Aren’t you about sick of you? Aren’t you about tired of you? Your old rotten attitude? Your own selfishness? Your stinginess? Your anger? Your lust? Your dirtiness? Go on down the list. Your impatience? Your anger? Whatever it might be? It would be nice and, by the way, I love John Wesley, a great man of God. I’d go and hear him preach if he was preaching today. But he was off on some doctrines. He was certainly off on that aspect that you become perfect later on if you’re a Christian. But unfortunately that doesn’t happen, but listen, as I’ve told you before: there is that seed of truth in there that troubles you about your sin and draws you to want to please and honor Christ. Not just put on some religion. It’s not about the rules, though we need some rules and the Bible gives us those. It’s about a heart that’s changed because in grace this favor we don’t deserve, he’s purchased us out of that bondage and we’re beginning to taste that we belong to another Master now. We’re beginning to experience that reality and hopefully we are being sanctified, we are growing in that, and one day we will completely be shed of the allurements of sin, of the entrapments of Satan’s kingdom and of the lust of self and the flesh.

Let me just add this as I’m saying that: the greatest form of self-bondage is works religion. Did you hear me? The greatest form of self-bondage is works religion. It’s when you’re so full of yourself, when you are so confident in yourself that you think you yourself can do something and cause God to go, “Wow! I’m impressed with you! I think I’ll take you into heaven. I’m just blown away at how impressive you yourself are!” That never is going to happen, by the way. And works religion is the greatest bondage to self. Worldliness, the greatest worldliness is not the drug addict or the alcoholic or the whoremonger or the adulterer, whoever it might be. That is worldliness. Or the man who just lives for the things of the world. Openness. Unashamedly. That is worldliness but the highest form of worldliness is works religion, a man who feels like, out of myself. That’s the worldly concept, “I can do it. I can achieve it. I can work it out.” Of course, grace is radically contrary to that. Well, that’s the grace of redemption and he says this in verse 7, this is “through His blood,” his literal substitutionary death is the purchase or the price paid rather to purchase us out of that.

Now, the grace of forgiveness. We talked about that for just a moment, this wonderful forgiveness that God has bestowed upon us and I mentioned to you last time that God is omniscient so he does not forget any of your sin. He has not forgotten any of the bad bad stuff you do or any of the bad bad things that have happened in your heart and in your mind. What if we put up on the screen tonight just some of the things that came across your heart and mind this past week? God hasn’t forgotten any of it. He’s omniscient. It’s impossible for God to forget anything but God does fully forgive it and he does not hold a grudge and he does not hold it against you for punishment. He says, “I choose to view my Son’s death as your punishment and I do not hold it against you for punishment.” That is a favor we do not deserve. That’s a grace, the grace of forgiveness. Verse 7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”

Now we come to new material and that is the grace of new understanding. The grace of new understanding. Look at it there in verses 8 and 9, “which He lavished on us.” Then he starts a new sentence, “In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will.” Let’s stop right there. The last part of verse 8, “In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will.” Now, being his child, we begin to understand things that we could not see before. Jesus talking to Nicodemus in John 3, Nicodemus can’t quite grasp what Jesus is talking about when he talks about the new birth and Jesus in effect says, “Of course, Nicodemus, you can’t understand this because there is nothing in your natural DNA, the gray matter in your head, that’s going to get this unless the Spirit enables it. Unless you are born again,” Jesus said to Nicodemus, “you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. You just can’t see what it’s about.” But in grace, God begins to let us in on divine secrets, if you will; divine wisdom and insight that the world cannot grasp.

Now, the world gladly will take your religion. If you tell the world, “Walk down the aisle. Take the preacher’s hand. Repeat the prayer. Be baptized. Do these five things. Don’t do these six things and you’re in pretty good shape.” They love you for that. They love religion. I mean, offer the world some hoops to jump through, some ordinances to observe, some rituals to conform to and they’ll try to do that and say, “Phew, have I got it done now?” That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a changed heart enables a man…there is a capacity God enables a man so that he begins to understand not much, to be honest, because God’s wisdom is so infinite and so high but we begin to understand something of God’s wisdom in what he is doing in the world and for his own glory. We get some insights in on some secrets, if you will.

Now, the Bible tells us that Satan has blinded the eyes of the unbelieving which leads us to conclude that only God can unblind or cause blind eyes, spiritually speaking, to see and that’s what Jesus was saying in Matthew 11:25 as he is ministering and he sees the elite theologians and religious leaders of the day can’t see it and can’t understand what he’s saying and they are against him and they are trying to destroy him. So Jesus cast his eyes toward heaven and he says, “I praise thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things,” thou didst hide these things, “from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes.” God, I praise you for the people you’ve kept from seeing this and the ones you have enabled to see it. What are you going to do with that? I’ll tell you what you can do with it, you’re going to say, “Praise God.” God is God. He does what he will do. It doesn’t matter if you like it, agree with it. It just doesn’t matter. God is God. So at conversion, we have a capacity to begin grasping the spiritual excellent things of God and we begin to have a love for them and both the understanding of these spiritually excellent things and loving these spiritual excellent things is a grace gift we don’t deserve.

In verse 8 he talks about wisdom there, “in all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will.” Now, actually what the verse is saying is that in God’s wisdom and insight, he chose that we would see this mystery; we would understand his will which means that others can’t see it. So God in his wisdom decided some would see it but, now, if he’s making known to us the mystery of his will, it means we’re also learning some of his wisdom. We can understand something of his wisdom. We can understand something of his insight.

Let me say a couple of things about wisdom and insight here because it’s about God’s wisdom and insight but it parallels man’s wisdom and insight. Wisdom is understanding the ways and purposes of God. When we have wisdom, we understand what life is and what life’s value is from God’s perspective. When we have wisdom, we understand what death means from God’s perspective. When we have wisdom, we understand who man is from God’s perspective. When we have wisdom, we understand what righteousness is by God’s definition. We understand what sin is by God’s definition. You may have heard about the homosexual man who claims to be a Christian and he’s kind of rewriting the Bible for us because we don’t understand it and he said, “In Sodom and Gomorrah, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was inhospitality. They were no hospitable so they were mean to Lot and they were inhospitable and so God judged them.” To which David Miller said, “Well, reckon what God would have done if he dealt with their sin of homosexuality if he did that for inhospitality?” Here’s my point: when you get saved, you begin to see sin as God sees sin; you gain a spiritual wisdom. You begin to understand heaven the way God understands heaven. Do you remember when you used to understand heaven as, “Doggone, I’ll get to bass fish every day. I’ll have my favorite pie every day.” I’m not saying you will or will not do that, I’m just saying that will be so far down on the list you can’t even imagine thinking about it because the pleasures of Christ are so infinitely wonderful when you see them in heaven.

You start seeing it the way God sees it. Hell, you begin to understand hell the way God understands hell. Eternity the way…and we could go on and on. It’s seeing things from God’s perspective instead of man’s perspective and, by the way, you’ve got to have this book to do that. You have to daily and as a walk of life have the constant humility to say, “Lord, I’m ready at any moment to repent of every predisposition I may have about anything and yield to what you say is right; what you say is true.” Amen? That’s the constant way we live because God has given us something. You see, the world can’t even choose to do that. They would read the Bible maybe as a history book or an interesting book of poetry but they can’t look at it and say, “I want to know God and what he says about.” That’s wisdom. You have that capacity to understand things after you’ve been born again and it’s all grace. It’s grace of new understanding. And insight is a little bit more practical. Insight is the idea of applying wisdom to everyday life.

Now, he says in God’s “wisdom and insight He made known to us,” now, in this case I think Paul is clearly talking and using his words here, those who he has chosen, those whom he has predestined, that’s the context of Ephesians 1 all through it, “He has made known to those the mystery of His will.” Now, when he says he’s made known to us the mystery of the will, the mystery does not mean this is something that was incomprehensible. It means it’s something that man on his own couldn’t find out. It’s almost like God sat in heaven and for centuries said, “Okay, go ahead. See if you can find out what the real truth is. See if you can find out what real wisdom is.” And man never found it. He didn’t even start or get close to finding it and then God – are you listening to me – God through the foolishness of preaching can take a 12 year old boy or girl and they can begin to understand the mystery of his will.

Now, in the context here, he’s writing to Gentiles. In the context here, the mystery of his will is this: that God does have a people he has chosen but those people are not just chosen because they’re Jews. That was a radical new discovery. That was a mystery that the Jews couldn’t understand. “God’s chosen more than the blood descendants of Abraham? Can’t be.” But that’s true. These are Gentiles in Ephesus. Most of them are not Jewish descendants. So they love the fact that, “Hot dog! God has chosen more than just the Jews. He has chosen Jews and Gentiles, even us Ephesians to be in the family.” And here’s another part of the mystery, what was undiscovered before but now God is making clear through his Spirit enabling people to see things they couldn’t see before and that is: it all is through Christ and grace. God has a people. It’s not just Jews, it’s Jews and Gentiles, and those people become God’s people not by rules, laws, ordinances, religion, not by the old system of Jewish works but by grace through faith. It’s all of grace. So we have this concept, his riches of grace, the grace of new understanding.

Now, 4. the fourth thing here is: grace is unmerited. We talked about this. That’s sort of a foundational thing but let’s elaborate just a tad bit more on that. In verse 9 he says, “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him.” So why did God have some that were chosen and predestined, in Paul’s words, that’s the context, that he would make these things, this grace of redemption, this grace of forgiveness, and this grace of new understanding, why would he do that? It’s the kind intention of his will to do it. You could say he decided he’d do it that way. That’s it. You can’t really…the text is so explicitly clear.

Look at verse 11, it is unmerited favor. He chose to do that. “Also we,” now, I think that’s referring back to Paul and the Jews. He’s writing to these Gentile believers, “we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose,” once again, why did he choose some, “who works all things after the counsel of His will.” Unmerited. He just chose to do it because that’s what he does. You say, “Well, how does God decide what to do?” He counsels with someone: himself. He does it after the counsel of his will. He says, “What do I want to do?” And here’s the glorious thing about God: God can do – listen to me – exactly what he desires to do and it’s always perfectly righteous and just. He’s incapable of not being righteous and just. Never think in your mind that there is some objective standard of what is true, righteous or just and God just happens to do a good job at that and we don’t. No, he is the true one. He is the just one. He is the righteous one. There is an objective standard of righteousness and truth and justice because it’s a reflection of him. It’s not just out there somewhere. It has an immutability.

It has veracity. It’s true. It cannot change. And that’s, again, why really the key to the world is the preaching of the Gospel. Men can’t hold to the kind of moral values and the kind of life principles that enables a people to be a free and liberated people and not ruin and destroy themselves with their lust and their perversions. The only way they can have liberties and freedoms and not yield to their lust and perversions and ruin and destroy themselves is to have the inward restraint of the Spirit of God and have the Spirit’s enablement to cause them to want to do what God says is right and good and moral and just and ethical.

So it’s by his own choice. He counseled with himself and said, “Self, what do you think we ought to do?” And Self said, “I think we’re going to choose and predestine some out of Jews and Gentiles to be ours and we’re going to give them the grace of redemption, we’re going to give them the grace of forgiveness, and we’re going to give them the grace of understanding and it’s all because we choose,” that’s God talking to himself, “we choose to do this.” That’s what Paul is saying here. You can’t make it say anything else. Sorry, it’s just not there. It’s just not there.

Now, of course, men’s flesh and I say that generically, men or women, men’s flesh long to boast. We long to claim that we did something to seal the deal. I’ve heard preachers say, “Now do the deal.” It’s as if conversion is this silly little gimmick, sort of almost bait and switch thing, and if you can get folks to do the deal, pray the prayer, whatever it is, then they get into heaven. Do you really believe God’s going to base eternity on that kind of nonsense? No way in the world.

Spurgeon when he was such a famous preacher in London, would not give an altar call. He would not call men to go anywhere at the end of his service. He wouldn’t say, “If you want to be saved, do this or that.” He refused to do it and yet he was acclaimed as one of the great evangelists of all time because of his preaching of the Gospel so strong and Spirit anointed. And he used to tell folks, “Your flesh would love for me to tell you something you could do that you might feel like you’ve secured your salvation.” He said, “But I’m not going to give it to you. I’m going to leave you with Jesus. You’ve got to go to him in faith because if I give you something, you’re liable to be like a dog chasing his tail and then you’ll begin to analyze what you did. ‘Did I mean it right? Did I understand it right? Did I repent right? Did I walk down right? Did I pray the prayer right? Did I understand it right? Did I understand it enough?'” Because it’s something you did, but salvation is not something you do, salvation is you casting all your hope on Christ this morning at 10 o’clock, 11:30, 2:45, 3:00, 6 o’clock, 11 o’clock at night. It’s a continual as you’re aware of your shortcoming and aware of how you fall short and aware of how you justly ought to be judged by God. It’s that continuous saying, “O Christ, my confidence is you! It’s you! It’s you!” Don’t look at you, look at him. Look at him. When you sin, where do you run? You run to him. You don’t run from him, you run to him because that’s proof you’ve got to have him because you can’t do it and the more you say it’s him and not you, the better you’ll live for him. Our flesh doesn’t naturally like that and millions and millions untold, perhaps even billions of dollars have been made and brought in by ministries who give men things to do because men want something to do instead of salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.

Charles Hodge said this about this loving grace that is all of him. Grace redeemed us. Grace gives us forgiveness. Grace gives us a new understanding. We didn’t earn any of it and Charles Hodge says, “God possesses an inexhaustible supply of unmerited love.” Think about that, “God possesses an inexhaustible supply of unmerited love.” You know, I preach this kind of stuff a lot because I just like it and because it’s all in the Bible and I hope you’re guarding against getting a little numbed by it. I hope you’re praying, “God, don’t let me just get the knowledge of it, cause me to be stirred by it again; cause me to be grateful for it again; cause me to be humbled under it again.”

Real quickly, two more quick things. The grace of inheritance. He adds on something here in verse 11 where he says, “also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” Because of grace, God has ordained that we get in on all that God the Father has handed over to Jesus. Did you get that? Because of grace, because this choice to favor us, we get in on all that the Father has handed over to the Son, Jesus Christ. Well, what has he handed over to the Son? Well, right before Jesus ascends back into heaven, he looks at his disciples and he says, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” So anything that is anywhere, he has all rule and authority over it. That’s a lot of stuff and we are joint heirs with him the Bible says.

Now, 5. not only the grace of inheritance grace objectives. “Paul, what’s the final concluding purpose here? Why would God do this and do it all this way?” Well, he says it quite clearly there in verse 10 and we’ll close with this, “with a view to an administration,” I would view that in term of the setting up of a system, if you will, “suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.” God says, “I have this plan to bring everything to a fruition, everything to this grand climactic conclusion in and through the person of Jesus Christ.” Summing up all things in Christ.

Now, we are redeemed by grace and saved so that we fit this new administration, this new set-up, if you will, when everything is finally summed up in Jesus Christ. Listen to me: everything is not going to be summed up by a new Democratic administration in Washington, DC. Everything is not going to be summed up by a new Republican administration in Washington, DC. Everything is not going to be summed up by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Everything will finally one day be summed up in Jesus Christ. That’s where it’s all going to. But for him to have this glorious new kingdom and for it all to be summed up in him, for him to have the glory he deserves, he needs a people and there are no people that qualify to be in his presence so he and the Father ordained a grace plan, a plan whereby he would get sinners unworthy of him to be changed radically by grace and become the children of God. So that’s what he did. You’re saved because Jesus needed some fit people to fit in his new glorious holy kingdom. That’s why you’re saved. He needed people to show his glory.

Now, the Bible uses a phrase there, “the fullness of times,” in verse 10, “with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times,” I believe that means the Gospel times; all the times of the epochs, if you will, of the Old Testament dispensation, I use that word “dispensation” loosely here for lack of a better word. That’s concluded and then the Gospel times or the fullness of times: Jesus’ birth, the time of Pentecost, the day of the Gentiles or the times of the Gentiles, then the end when there’s the rapture and the conversion of the Jews, then the millennial kingdom, then the new heaven and the new earth. That will be the summing up now of all things that is coming along – listen – just exactly according to God’s timetable. Nothing is lacking. Nothing is missing. Nothing is behind. It’s all perfectly unfolding as he sees fit and all will be brought to its perfect and glorious end. He says everything in heaven, everything on the earth. All the angels, all men, all Jews, all Gentiles saved by him, the living and the dead, the animate and inanimate parts of creation all will come to a summation in him; all will come to a perfect union and submission to God in him. Now, that’s just going to be wonderful beyond comprehension that every single being in the universe with all of their heart, mind and strength will love, honor, yield and serve God through what Jesus Christ has accomplished.

Now presently, as Peter preached on the day of Pentecost to Jews who had perverted religion and to the Greeks and Romans who perverted everything else, he said, “Be saved from this perverse generation,” and that’s where we are. Presently, sin has perverted the creation’s subjection to God but God has got a plan going where all of it is going to be brought back like it should be. Through the provisions and merits of Jesus Christ, everything will be brought back, summed all up in Jesus Christ.

Now, real quick turn over to Colossians 1 because Paul says basically the same thing to the church at Colossae. Colossians 1:13-22, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,” that has already happened, “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him,” now notice this, “and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him,” verse 20, “and through Him to reconcile all things,” that’s angels, that’s heaven, that’s earth, that’s the material, the spiritual, men, Jews, Gentiles, it doesn’t matter. He is reconciling all that’s going to be reconciled, all things “to Himself,” verse 20, “having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” That is, again, the summing up of all things so the reason for this glorious glorious riches of grace we’ve been talking about is to the end that Christ will have the kingdom he deserves. He has paid for it with his own blood and he will have a people in that kingdom.

Now back to Ephesians. We’ll close with this to give you that final statement that we stake most everything in our ministry builds on this one stake, verse 12, “to the end,” in Ephesians 1 again, “to the end,” 1:12, “to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.” That’s it. That for all eternity, Christ will be praised and God will be glorified for what he could do in his power, wisdom and by the beauty of his very being and all that he has accomplished.

Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.