He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Hear the voice of Sovereign Grace. The Voice of Sovereign Grace is co-hosted by various ministries who, in spite of their differences, all firmly believe in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace. Simply put, these ministries all proclaim the glorious truth that God alone saves sinners, because sinners cannot even help save themselves. Tonight's edition of The Voice of Sovereign Grace is hosted by Pastor Joe Losarto of Bread of Life Fellowship in Wayne, New Jersey. For more details, visit bolfellowship.org. That's bolfellowship.org. Or call 866-38-BREAD. That's 866-38-BREAD. And now, here's tonight's host, Pastor Joe Losardo of Bread of Life Fellowship of Wayne, New Jersey. You've probably heard the expression, have you accepted God? But perhaps a more biblical question is, has God accepted you? Hi, this is Damian Garofalo, and I'm here with Joseph Lissardo, Bread of Life Fellowship in Wayne, New Jersey. Pastor Joe, in Ephesians 1, verse 6, the Bible says, To the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he made us accepted in the Beloved. This must mean that there is a time in a Christian's life in which he was not accepted. So, why would the Bible say that people are in need of being accepted by God? Well, Damien, it comes from really an understanding of human nature. There is this tendency on the part of the world to think that we're all God's children, that we're born God's children. But the scripture is very clear on the matter that in and of ourselves, in our natural birth, there is no one who pleases God. There is no one who is born a child of God. We are actually, it says the opposite, we are enemies of God. And it is only through adoption, through God the Father receiving us in Christ, on the basis of our trust in Christ, that we are adopted and then become children of God. And at that point we are accepted in the Beloved, we are accepted in Christ. Okay, so what does a person have to do to receive God's acceptance? Well, acceptance is by grace. And this is really where the text in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 6 that we're going today, the scripture makes it very clear that He made us accepted in the Beloved, that God accepts us. The root word is the same word as grace. He favors us. We don't have a verbal equivalent of the word grace in English, but He graces us. He graced us in the Beloved. And in Christ, in the Beloved, we enter into this union, this marriage covenant with Christ, this vital union whereby everything that is His is ours. That's what it means to be graced in the Beloved, to be accepted in the Beloved. It means that as objects of His love, we become highly favored. we become pleasing to the Father, not in and of ourselves, but because of our position in Christ. Amen. Well, we'll look into that more deeply as we hear from Pastor Joe in a message entitled, Graced, that was preached at Bread of Life Fellowship. And I'll be back at the end to let you know how you can receive this teaching in its entirety. and it's God's grace that's going to be the object of our meditation this morning. Our text, Ephesians 1, verse 6, drives us to consider grace. Verse 6 contains a relative clause that emphasizes an aspect of God's glory. You see, if you look at it, it says, of His glorious grace, and then it goes on in verse 6, it says, by which or wherein He made us accepted in the Beloved. Today we're going to look at the grace of God as manifested in yet another spiritual blessing, which we can add to our list, our growing list of spiritual blessings. We've talked about election, predestination, adoption, and today, accepted in the Beloved. We're all outcasts. We have no claim on His love. But God's own Son, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, has died for us, so that we who believe then are dressed in the fleece of the Lamb who died. So God has accepted us in Christ and adopted us as His children in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are as dear to the Father as His own holy and spotless Son. To the praise of the glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. Here in verse 6, the word glory is to be understood adjectivally. That is, glory is not the object, but rather glory describes the object of this phrase, namely grace. In Greek, it's charis. The text in verse 6 may be accurately understood as the ESV or the RSV render it, to the praise of His glorious grace. To say that grace is glorious means that it is a reflection of God's glory. It's His revealed character. God reveals who He is in grace. The praise of God's grace, then, is to praise His name. Tim James wrote, Grace is such a singular and absolute thing that it will countenance no rival and tolerate no adornment. It stands alone. No words can do it justice. No song can encompass its true melody. No sermon or theological treatise can expound the depths or the height of its glory. Every redeemed sinner rests in it, is motivated by it. Those who have experienced the beauty and power of it find their minds and hearts consumed by it. Grace is the mystery and revelation. Our language is salted with it. Our relationships are monitored and measured by it. Our souls are permeated with it. God's grace is His glory. 1 Corinthians 15 talks about it, being in Adam or in Christ. Every one of us in this room are either in Adam or in Christ. And there's a positional change that takes place that's initiated by God. He made us accepted in the Beloved. It is God's work. It's an indicative. So it states a fact about your condition in Christ, or better, your position in Christ. It's difficult to translate. And this is why many of your different translations are going to say different things. Some are going to say, He blessed us, accepted us. And I like the King James because it conveys it. It says, He hath made us. He made us. In other words, it's God's action. But the word accepted has become so watered down. in our culture today, especially over the ages. What does accepted mean today? I accept you, brother. Today's psychologically driven world just seems to me to mean, well, I receive you just the way you are. That's the way we think of accepted, isn't it? I receive you just the way you are. That's not what this is saying here. Even the more generic definition, if you look it up in Webster's Dictionary, to accept, to receive willingly. It doesn't capture the meaning of this Greek verb. Some have sought in this verb that it refers to justification. That is, that we've been made acceptable by God on the basis of His judicial decree upon our faith in Christ. But while ikeratosin includes justification, this word in Greek means even more than that. The term accepted. Accepted. What does it mean? The verb is only used twice in the New Testament. The other time is in Luke, chapter 1, verse 28, where the angel visits Mary, and he uses the verb in the form of a participle, and he describes Mary as highly favored. The same verb, karito'o. linked to charis, meaning grace. What this verb means here in Ephesians 1, and why I think almost every translation doesn't quite get it right, is because there is no English equivalent to the word. We have no verbal equivalent to the noun grace. Echaritoson means we are taken into favor, or best, we have been graced. Graced. If you are a Christ, you have been graced by God. To think of it, being graced, rather than just accepted, it emphasizes here what the original intends, namely that this is God's gift of salvation. It is the result of His grace. It's impossible to separate one from the other as it is by grace one is saved. in the Beloved. All of God's blessings, including most of all His grace, only come in Christ. And we cannot ignore this, and we cannot ignore the parallel truth then, that as God so loves us in Christ, He so abhors us apart from Christ. There's nothing in our natural that makes us so amazing. We can't go up to the person out on the street, if we don't know they're saved, and say, God thinks you're so amazing. The natural man, we're told, cannot please God. Romans 8 tells us, to be carnally minded is death. The natural man's at enmity with God. And only the spiritual man, who is born again, the one who is born from above, with the second birth from God, not from flesh, he is pleasing to God. He hears His prayers. He inhabits His praise and walks and talks with Him. And He accepts our offerings. 1 Peter 2.5 says that as His holy priesthood, we offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We're looking at this phrase, in Christ, in the Beloved. Paul uses this little phrase, in Christ, something like 70 to 80 times. And it speaks of our union, being united with Christ, in Christ, all important reality. If you don't understand this, you're not going to understand Christianity. The life of a Christian is bound up in the life of Christ. And as sure and as long as He lives, those who are united to Him shall live also. We're the branches. And if the vine lives, the branches live. Christ said it in John 14, because I live, you will live also. He's affirming the doctrine of union with Him. Christ then becomes to you wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That's everything, folks. In this union, Christ has become wisdom for you. He overcomes your blindness and your foolishness and your ignorance. In this union, Christ becomes righteousness for you. He overcomes sin and guilt and condemnation and dead works. In this union, Christ becomes sanctification for you. He overcomes your corruption, your pollution, and He renews your mind. In this union, Christ becomes redemption for you. He overcomes the futility of life, and at the end of this life, He even overcame death. Cherish this, brothers and sisters. Cherish your union with Christ. Grow in your grasp of these things. Make it your meditation day and night. Live in them. Savor them. Paul loves this doctrine. He often ascribes our righteous standing with God to our union with Christ. He said in Galatians 2.17, seek to be justified in Christ. He said in Romans 8.1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Justified in Christ. No condemnation in Christ. If you love those verdicts, if you cherish the verdict of justified, there's no condemnation, then cherish your union with Him. Because He's the One who attained it on your behalf. Which is why the Gospel is so heavy. We throw around, God loves you. Stop and think about what that means for a moment. Stop and think what it means. Jesus died for you. We'll go out on the street and say to people, Jesus died for you. What does that mean? Think about what you're saying. God loves you. Jesus died for you. It means that the Father who loved His Son so much, who spent an endless eternity in perfect love, He sends His only begotten Beloved Son into a sea of wickedness. And He knows that His Son, who He loves for eternity, is going to be reviled, and spit upon, and mocked, and hated, and whipped, and ignored, and then finally nailed to a tree. What wondrous love is this? Oh, my soul. Romans said, He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. He's the Beloved of the Father, but the Father didn't spare Him. If you're a father in this room, you know what this means. Yes, does God love the world? I'll tell you how much He loves the world. He actually then laid on His Beloved Son the iniquity of us all. And something that is beyond what I could ever imagine as a father. He actually poured out His wrath and indignation that He had against sin. My sin. Your sin. And He smote His Son with the stripes that you and I deserve. And you ask if God loves the world? How can you think otherwise if you know all this? The Beloved of Heaven became a sin offering for us, the very ones who hate Him and mock Him. How can you doubt God loves you? My friend, I pray that if you're hearing this today, and He is not your Beloved, that you would receive this as an invitation. Because to be apart from Him means that you remain His enemy. It means that you are under condemnation. Why stay in that state? There is no reason for you to stay in that state. The love of your sin is never going to amount to anything compared to God's love. Receive Him today. Why stand condemned? Why stay married to the law of sin and death when God says you could be free from that bond and be married to the Lord Jesus Christ? Friend, the fact is, if you remain in this state apart from Christ, that it would have been better if you would have never even been created. But because God so loved the world and He gave His only begotten Son, His beloved Son, today, if you hear His voice and do not harden your heart, if you would come to Him by faith today, He will not cast you away. You have not sinned away your opportunity. He will not cast you out if you come to Him by faith. He'll receive you to Himself and He'll make you accepted in the Beloved. For you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, graced in the Beloved. You know, just like the father who seeks a bride for his son, and then is going to also love that one as a daughter. And when they marry, he loves his daughter-in-law as much as his own daughter. In the same manner, God delights in you as His son's bride. He chose you to be His Son's bride. And now in this union with Christ, He loves you. Because Christ is His beloved Son, we become in Him beloved as well. Turn to John 17. John's account here, Jesus lets us into this intimate conversation. And we're going to be often in our studies in Ephesians, in John 17, because they kind of go hand in hand. John 17, look at verse 20. Martin Lloyd-Jones said that, and I'm with him on this, if it were not in this verse, I would not believe it. John 17, verse 20. I do not pray for these alone, but also those who will believe in me through their word. That's you. All of you who have come to Christ by faith, that's you. Jesus is praying. And they all may be one, as you, Father, and me, and I, and you, and also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one, just as we are one, I in them, and you in me. that they may be perfect in one, that the world may know that you sent me. And, get this, don't miss this, and have loved them, who's the them? That's you, in Christ, have loved them as much as you have loved me. Do you see that? That's not said of any angel. That's not said of mankind in general. That is said only to those who are in Christ. There's a special covenantal love here. And there's no denying God has a general love for all His works, and there's a real sense in which God loves animals, and God loves trees, and God loves unregenerate people. This is a call to His Beloved. In Christ, you are His Beloved. Not everyone is His Beloved. And Jesus says here, Father, You have loved them as You have loved Me. This is amazing. Amazing love. How can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for Me? Amazing. That's amazing love. See, if you're like the young actor on the radio, and God thinks everyone's amazing, and He loves you so much and He just wants to be a father to you and all that, then you're never going to really appreciate what it means to be accepted in the Beloved. Because you think you're already His Beloved. So Christ isn't sweet to you. But those of you who know better, those of you who know your depravity and your wickedness, you who know that you are sinners upon whom the wrath of God would abide if it were not for Christ, realize this fact that you or I or anyone that is accepted in the Beloved, realize what this means. Please, if you're listening to one thing, if you tuned everything else out, Listen to this. The fact is that you or I or anyone is accepted in the Beloved means that God loves you more than He hates your sin. You get that? As much as God hates sin, and we know the Word of God tells us how much He hates sin. He loves you, sinner, more in Christ than that hatred. And that's astounding, or at least it should be. And if it's not astounding to you, then you really don't know how much God hates sin. You see why it's so important to have a proper understanding of the holiness of God? If your God is perfectly holy and cannot look upon sin, you're going to appreciate more what is done for you in Christ. You're accepted in the Beloved in Christ because ultimately, God loves Christ more than He hates your sin. And for a thrice holy God, that is a lot of love. Next time you doubt whether or not God loves you, remember that. Think about that the next time the world expresses hatred to you. So what? The world hates me? I have my beloveds and my beloved is mine. So what? My Christian brother or sister doesn't think so highly of me? I have my beloveds and my beloved is mine. And some Christians have a hard time with this. They think they're only accepted as long as their experience tells them they're accepted. And once they fall, as men will fall, as we all will, they become victims of fear and they think, well, now I'm no longer accepted anymore. Brethren, if you could get this truth down, if you could only see that all of your victories and all of those high joy times that you have, that doesn't exalt you one iota. And on the other side of it, your lowest of lowest despondencies does not depress you from the Father's sight. But you stand accepted in the One who never changes, the One who was and is and always will be the Beloved of God. That will make you stable. How much happier? How much more joy will there be? And as a result, how much more honor and love and glory will there be for Christ? The love of the Christian for God, and Christ's love for us, and God's love for the Son, they're all a product of the love of the Trinity. Jonathan Edwards saw this eternal love between the Father and the Son, and the Son and the Father, and the Spirit is there as the mediator of divine love. And then by faith, we're joined to Christ, and we are, as a result of the indwelling of His Holy Spirit within us, we're brought into this love. Is Christ your Beloved? Do you know this Beloved Person? Blessed is the person who can say by faith, Christ is my Beloved. This is the climax here of the spiritual blessings, right here. This is the peak of intensity. I mean, it's been wonderful to know that we're chosen by God from the days of eternity. That's wonderful. It's glorious to know that He's making us holy, making us vessels of honor. Even greater still, that He would adopt us as sons, and that adoption was set from the days of eternity, has nothing to do with us. We love also that it was done by His good pleasure. It's His good pleasure to love us. It's a wonderful thing indeed that this was all done to the display of the glory of God and even to the principalities and powers, but by far the most wonderful thing that we can barely fathom is that all of this is accomplished because you have been graced in the Beloved. You've brought into a marriage union with Christ. And He is, in every real sense, your Beloved. So as you fight with corruption, as the body of death gets to you and you're wrestling with temptation, remember that fact has not changed. You're accepted in the Beloved. When the world presses in hard, remember the Beloved has overcome the world. When Satan tempts you to despair, Remember, He cannot destroy you any more than He can destroy Christ. Remember, your Beloved is Ruddy, Chief among ten thousands. He crushed Satan's head. Your salvation has been worked out in Christ, the Beloved Son of the Father, the brightness of His glory, the expressed image of His person, and in Him, you are loved as Him. There's a lot more to this message that we couldn't air, but if you'd like to listen to it in its entirety, you can find it online at our website, or sermonaudio.com. Just look for the sermon entitled, Graced. If you'd like for us to send you a free CD of this message, send us an email at info at bolfellowship.org, or visit our website, www.bolfellowship.org. Or you can call us toll free at 1-866-38BREAD. That's 1-866-38BREAD. Be sure to leave your mailing information and we'll be happy to send that to you. That number again is 1-866-38-BREAD. Again, look for it online or ask for it by name. The sermon is entitled, GRACED. And we'd also like to take this opportunity to invite you this Sunday as we're celebrating our 10 year anniversary as a church. We meet at Calvary Gospel Church, which is located at 1559 Hamburg Turnpike in Wayne, New Jersey at 1130 a.m. And we'd love to have you join us for this special celebration. Until next time, this is Damian Garofalo for Joseph Lissardo and the entire Bread of Life Fellowship Church exhorting you to keep listening to God's voice of sovereign grace. In the 10th chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus tells us, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life. Have you heard the voice of Christ, the Good Shepherd, calling you to Himself through tonight's broadcast? If so, take up your cross and follow Him. Thank you for listening to tonight's edition of The Voice of Sovereign Grace, which was sponsored by Bread of Life Fellowship of Wayne, New Jersey. For more details visit bolfellowship.org, that's bolfellowship.org, or call 866-38-BREAD, 866-38-BREAD, that's 866-38-BREAD. For a list of all the ministries who co-host The Voice of Sovereign Grace, visit voiceofsg.org. That's voiceofsg.org. We hope you tune in every week to The Voice of Sovereign Grace.