Turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter number one this morning. Ephesians chapter number one. I've been soaking in this book for some time and look forward to sharing some wonderful truths with you from the pages of God's Word. Ephesians chapter number one as we're going to start a brand new series in the new year here, 2022. I'm excited about it. Look forward to what God has for us as we serve Him for His glory. Ephesians chapter number one. Find, if you would please, verse number one. Aren't you glad you have a Bible today? Thank you, Church, for 100,000 French Creole John and Romans that are on their way to Haiti. There's lives going to be changed because you made a difference, and we know it's all for His glory, but thank you for being faithful and giving your time, your energy for that great project. and over two million copies of the Word of God have been put out through our church, and so thankful for that. Ephesians 1, verse 1, the Bible says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Aren't you glad that God has a will for Paul's life? He's got a will for your life today. Ephesians will say much about the will of God. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints. which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to notice that little word, and, in the latter part of verse 2. It's very important, that little conjunction. It's a term of equality, a strong statement here of the deity of Christ, God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. And you're going to find, dear friend, that whenever you come to the Bible, it's going to elevate and exalt the person of Jesus Christ. You know, you cannot glorify the Father without glorifying His Son. When we lift Him up, we lift up God the Father. How important that is, and what a blessing it is. Let's pray together. We're going to dive into our passage this morning. Lord, we love You. Thank You for the joy of being in Your house. I'm glad to say, Lord, in my life, You're more than enough, and I thank You for that. Now Lord, stir our hearts today. Challenge us from Your Word. Speak to us. Lord, I believe You have a message today, and You want us to hear it just like You wanted these Ephesian believers to hear it so many thousands of years ago. Lord, You wrote to them, but You wrote to us. And I pray that, Lord, we'd be responsive to You. Pray if someone's here that doesn't know You, Savior, they'll come to know You. And, Lord, all of us would have a greater appreciation of who we are in You. And we'll sure thank You for it. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Well, as I was reading this week, I ran across an interesting lady. Her name was Hetty Green. Hedy was a woman who came to fame in early America around the early 1900s. She was a Wall Street financier when women weren't really in business. She pioneered women into the Wall Street business world. And she, at that time in her day, was named the richest woman in America. By the time she died, she had amassed a fortune of over $200 million. Can you only imagine what she would be worth in today's money? That was in the early part of the turn of the 20th century. And a very, very wealthy, wealthy woman. But that wasn't why she was famous. As I can continue to read about her life, I realized as I read that despite all of her wealth, that she was famous because she was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's greatest miser. As a matter of fact, she was a cheapskate. Hedy was so miserly that she wouldn't turn on the heat in the wintertime. Now some of you feel like that's Calvary Baptist Church right now. I know, or maybe your husband, but anyway. She never used hot water and rumor had it she only ate oatmeal, eggs, and onions unheated so she wouldn't increase her fuel bill. She wore a single black dress and undergarments. That's all the clothes she owned. And they were only replaced when they were worn out. She told her launderer, she said, just wash the dirtiest parts of my clothes so you can save a little bit of money on soap. Imagine that. Not only was she rich, but she stunk. But that's outside the point. She was so miserly that her son, Ned, had to have his leg took off, amputated, because she took so long trying to find a free clinic to see him. Can you imagine that? And his case became incurable. She was wealthy, yet she chose to live like a pauper. Well, you say, preacher, what in the world does that have to do with me this morning? Well, the sad fact is that, dear child of God, you're rich. but far too many of us live like spiritual paupers. Or really, we're so worried or concerned about what we don't have in this world or what this world has to offer that we fail to realize and appropriate in our lives what we really and truly have, the wealth that we have, in Christ. Christian, I'm here to tell you today, you are a wealthy, wealthy, wealthy individual. Over 16 years ago, Calvary Baptist Church brought me here to be their pastor, and my name's Broyhill. If you come to my town, you would think I own my town. It's everywhere in Lenore. I mean, it's on the side of buildings, I mean, it's in the parks, and different places are called Broyhill Civic Center, Broyhill this, Broyhill that. And y'all thought I was rich and that I would pay all the debt off in our church. And you know what? I let you down. But can I tell you, I'd rather have all the riches that I have in Jesus than all the riches that's attached to the broil name. Dear child of God, you're rich today. Matter of fact, Ephesians was written to let you know just how rich you really are. You're going to find over five times the word rich or riches are mentioned. He's going to talk about the riches of His grace. He's going to talk about the riches of the glory of our inheritance. He's going to talk about the unsearchable riches of Christ. Frank, can I tell you, it's past finding out. You'll never exhaust it all. And Ephesians is not a long book. It's not a large book in comparison to the other books of the New Testament. It's only six chapters, 155 verses, and you read it in about 20 minutes in one sitting. I call it a little book with a big message. Somebody wrote that pound for pound, Ephesians may well be the most influential document in history. When you come to the first two verses of this little book, you're going to find it's actually the greeting of a letter. I remind you, we call them books of the Bible, but much of the New Testament were letters written to churches and individuals, and it's almost as if the Lord's saying hello to the saints, and God's saying hello to you and me this morning out of this little book right here. In ancient times, letters were written totally different than what we do today. If you receive a letter today, somebody writes you, and it'll have your name at the top. Have you ever noticed you've got to read all the way to the bottom to find out who it's from? Well, that's not the way it was in that day. You're going to find in the very opening words, the greeting, you find out who it's from and who it's to. And you're going to find that it's about a heavenly person. Notice, if you would, in verse 1, Paul. Boy, I tell you what, just all kinds of thoughts come to our minds. The greatest Christian to ever live. But can I tell you, this book isn't about Paul. He may be the human writer of the book. He may be the messenger of the book. But he's not the message of the book. Notice he said, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I'm just sent by Jesus. That's what he's saying. Now he's in a unique sense, sent like no one else has ever sent. You're going to find that our faith is built, and we're going to see this in Ephesians, upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, New Testament offices given to the early church to lay the foundation of biblical Christianity. And Paul is writing as an authoritative messenger of Christ. But there is a true sense in which every Christian in this room, you are sent by Christ into the world with a mission to share Him. Friend, listen, if I'm wealthy, I want somebody to know it. Amen? And listen, I'm wealthy in Jesus, we ought to tell somebody else about it. Amen? Because He wants them to be wealthy too. Paul came to Ephesus on his third missionary journey. You read about that in Acts chapter number 19. He was there about three years. He started out in the synagogue. Some Jews got saved. Some Gentile proselytes got saved. So this church is made up of both Jewish believers and Gentile believers. That's going to be very important as we work our way through the book to understand that. You're going to find that not everybody received the message in the synagogue, and Paul had to leave the synagogue. He went to a place called the School of Tyrannus. You'll read all about that in Acts 19. He's there for two years in that lecture hall, shared the great truths of biblical Christianity, preached the gospel so that the Holy Spirit said, all they that dwell in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. Boy, that ought to be true of our day, don't you think? It ought to be true of King. It ought to be true of the surrounding communities. Everybody ought to hear about him. Paul wrote back to Corinth where he had left, and he said, A great door, an effectual, is opened up unto me. He said, God's doing great things, but he also said there's many adversaries. Church, you know, God's doing some good things here at Calvary. We sure don't deserve it, and we're thankful for it. But I just want to always tell you, anytime God opens a door, there's always going to be adversaries. There's always going to be opposition. You want to remember that and want to keep moving forward. And he taught publicly, the Bible said, and house to house, and revival broke out, and people were saved, and lives were changed, and decisions were made, and a church was founded, and believers... God had brought such power and such change to their lives that the Bible tells us they brought their books of magic and curious arts and all that that was caught up in their pagan idolatry, and they burned it. Boy, I tell you, I remember a time we had one of those kind of burnings back in my church in Lenore. God had broke in and done some things, and I said, folks, we're going to do like they did in Acts, and we got an old big steel barrel, started a fire, people were throwing stuff in. I mean, kids, they were so excited, they were throwing their toys in. You know what I believe it pictured is, is that God had made a difference, and they weren't who they used to be, and they didn't want to be known for who they were, but who they now were, what they used to be, but who they now were in Christ. And let me just tell you something, dear child of God, it matters how we live. Paul's writing to them because he's going to elevate them, and he said, I don't want you to live like you used to live. I want you to live who you are now in Christ. As a matter of fact, the Bible said it was 50,000 pieces of silver. That's $330,000 worth of junk and sin that was burnt. By the way, don't give your old sin to somebody else. Burn it. Well, I don't watch these videos anymore or I don't listen to that music. I'm just going to pass that on in the yard. Why pass on our past sin to somebody else? Why don't we just get rid of it and not defile anybody else? The Bible said, so mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed. God hadn't changed. Can I tell you the Gospel is still the power of God unto salvation to everybody that believes God can still bring revival into our lives and into our churches and into our land. You say, preacher, you just don't watch the news and you don't know how bad it is. Oh no, I just remember He's more than enough. That's just what I know. Let's just trust Him. Let's be faithful to Him. You say, what if it doesn't bring revival? I can have it and you can have it and our church can have it. God's arms are not shortened that it cannot save. Revival led to a riot and Paul had to leave town. That was about 52 A.D. The third missionary journey, ten years have now passed. Paul is in prison. You're going to find two times in chapter 3 verse 1, chapter 4 verse 1, he's going to talk about him being in house imprisonment. That's where we find that's the Acts 28 imprisonment, so to speak, and he's there in Rome and he's not sure of the outcome. And he writes from a prison cell because he's concerned about the believers and the Holy Spirit is moving him and inspiring a letter to every one of us about Jesus Christ. It's about a heavenly person. He's the messenger. Do you realize that Ephesians... Chapter 1 is the most Christ-centered chapter in the New Testament. Matter of fact, the whole book is Christ-centered. I want to challenge you this week just to read chapter 1. Now, you read the whole book, but read through chapter 1. Maybe take a chapter a day or as we work our way through. And I want you to take maybe a colored pencil or whatever it is that you might want to use and mark every time you find Jesus mentioned just in chapter 1. I think if we count it, it's no less than 25 times in 22 verses. You see, I want you to understand, when we study the book of Ephesians, we're going to be studying and we're going to be learning about our great Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to fall in love with Him all over again. But not only is it about a heavenly person, it's to a heavenly people. Look, if you would, he said, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus. Did you notice that he's going to mention, he's going to talk about the faithful in Christ Jesus? I'll come back to that little phrase in a moment. But there's two locations in verse number one here. Two locations. Every Christian, listen, if you're saved today, you live in two locations. You have two locations. The Ephesian saints had two locations. They were located physically, geographically in Ephesus. The saints which are at Ephesus, that particular local church, they're in that particular place, geographical location. But they also had a spiritual location. You see it in the last few words of the passage. He said, "...the faithful in Christ, Jesus. Can I just tell you, dear friend, it is one thing to be in Ephesus, it's one thing to be in King, it's one thing to be in Winston-Salem, or Shoals, or Pilot Mountain, or Pinnacle, or wherever, but it is quite something else to be in Jesus Christ. You're going to find that little phrase, in Christ, in Him, in Christ Jesus, more than 30 times throughout the book. We're going to learn what it means to be in Christ. It's unique to biblical Christianity. It's what sets it apart from all the other religions of the world. No follower of Islam would ever say to be in Allah. No follower of Buddhism would ever say that they're in Buddha. No follower of the millions of Hindu gods would ever say that they're in their God. But friend, can you realize the beauty of biblical Christianity? The wealth of what we have in Him? That the moment we come to know Jesus Christ as Savior, that there is a spiritual living union takes place. And dear child of God, I may be physically right here in King, North Carolina, but spiritually, I am in Jesus Christ. I am in Him. Never lose sight of that. It speaks of our oneness that we have in Him. We're alive in Him. Notice He calls us saints. Isn't that a wonderful term? Now you say, preacher, what's a saint? Well, let me tell you what one ain't. A saint's not a dead person that's been elevated and canonized to a special title in the Roman Catholic Church. I can tell you something else they ain't. They ain't a select group of Christians with an SC painted on their chest that are elite Christians that are super Christians. That's not what they are. You're going to find that saints or saint is mentioned nine times in Ephesians, and it's God's designation for every person that's in His Son, every person that's saved. You say, Preacher, I'm saved, but I ain't no saint. Well, J. Vernon McGee says, either you're a saint or you're ain't. That's it. There are only two kinds of people in the world, the saints and the ain'ts, okay? You say, how is that with English? We're in the South, it doesn't matter. Okay, let's keep moving. I just want to tell you today, if you're saved, dear child of God, you are a saint. Now you may not live saintly, and your attitude may not always be saintly, but you're a saint in Christ Jesus. That ought to elevate you. That ought to motivate you. That ought to move you. A saint is someone who's been set apart. That's what the word means. I've been set apart from to. Anytime you set something apart, you've set it apart from something, and you've set it to something. The moment a person is saved, they are set apart, the Bible says, from the world. God sort of circles them out. You're going to see that a little bit later on when we get to verse number 4. Everybody's all worried about this word chosen, and we're going to talk some time about that word chosen, and we're going to have a Bible understanding to it, not a Calvinist understanding to it. And we're going to realize it has an idea of position. of being a choice one in Him. And we've been designated, set apart, sort of brought out from the world. But listen, I'm not in a vacuum. No, I'm set apart from something to something. I'm now set apart unto God. I am His saint. I belong to Him. He's the Father of Jesus Christ, but He's also my Father. The devil will tell you you're a nobody. The world will tell you you're a nobody. There's times we feel like we're nobodies, but God just said, you're a somebody in my son. That's what he just said. We may not have much value so far as the world is concerned. We may not have, Mary, much value in our own eyes. But I want to tell you, dear child of God, you are valuable. How rich we are! You are valuable to the Creator God of the universe. Because if you know His Son, you are in Him. You are His saint. You are one of His sheep. You are His servant. You are His soldier. You are His son or your daughter. We belong to God. And friend, that makes us somebody in Him. We stand in special relation to Him. We're His saints. This is a heavenly letter to a heavenly people that dwell in heavenly places. Look over with me at verse number 3. Would you do that? Blessed. Here we go. Blessed. Paul's so caught up in the greeting, the Holy Spirit. You realize these are God's words, not Paul's. And the Lord's allowing Paul to express himself through the letter. And it's an inspired blessed. He's saying, God, I want to bless you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us. with all spiritual blessings, watch this, in heavenly places in Christ. Would you underline that phrase? Four times we're going to see that phrase. You're going to see it twice in chapter 1, once in chapter 2, and again in chapter 3. It talks about the domain that you are to dwell in as a believer. You say, well, wait a minute, I don't want to be so heavenly minded. I'm of no earthly good. That's really not our problem. Usually we're so earthly minded, we're no heavenly good. I think we need to change our mindset and we need to be more heavenly minded. We need to be more focused. Do you know where Christ is at? He's in the heavenlies. The Bible says in Ephesians, He's seated at His own right hand in heavenly places. Guess where you're seated, Christian? In heavenly places. Can I tell you, I'm as good as there. That's where I sit right now, with Him. We belong to Him. We're seated with Him. All of heaven's resources are ours and we're going to see that in this passage. We're going to learn about what it is to be in heavenly places in Christ. And then thirdly, notice there's a heavenly purpose here. He said, "...and to the faithful in Christ Jesus." So did you catch it? Heavenly person, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. Heavenly people, saints. Now we come down to a heavenly purpose. Saints is what we are. Faithful is what we should be. Do you know God never required me to be smart? He never required me to be wise or educated. He never required me to be wealthy. He didn't. He didn't require me to be talented. I told some folk the other day, I was preaching Ross's funeral, and you all know he was a gifted artisan, and I said, I was telling the folks at the funeral that, my wife, if God hadn't called me to preach, we'd have starved to death, because I can't even build a birdhouse and make all four sides fit. There's no talent there. God didn't say I had to be all those things, but God said, if you want to serve Me, I want you to be faithful. Moreover, it's required in Stewards. Let me just ask you this question. Are you faithful for His glory? Can you put your name there? Oh, I can put my name Saint, but can you put your name to the faithful in Christ Jesus? Boy, what a question. Am I faithful to Him? Now, that's very important. You say, Preacher, why is that? Because it sets the tone for the book. You're going to find that the book of Ephesians is going to equally divide into two parts, or divisions, and it's going to correspond to this dual designation of saints and faithful. He's going to talk about our wealth and our walk. He's going to talk about what we believe and how we're to behave. Chapters 1-3 talks about our wealth, what we believe, who we are in Christ. You come to chapters 4-6, it talks about our walk and adds in some warfare in chapter 6. And you're going to find in those chapters there, this is what we're to be. This is our behavior. So doctrine, duty, belief, behavior, who I am, my position, what I'm to be, my practice, I'm a saint, I'm wealthy in Christ. God said, okay, now act like it. That's what the book's all about. Act like it. They go together. Let me just say this. If you have a high view of God, it'll lead you to a higher level of living. You see, here's what's the matter with modern Christianity in America. You say, preacher, what is it? We are deifying man and humanizing God. Okay? And so what we've done is we've created a low view of God. And therefore, Christianity's now on a low level of living. It's more worldly. But boy, when we get God where He's supposed to be, it just by natural, like a magnet, lifts us up to where we're supposed to be. were to live for His glory. Matter of fact, I can prove that to you. Look over at chapter 3. This is probably one of the few places we're going to turn out of the text, but look over at chapter 3 real quick. Would you do that? Look at verse 21. Look at this verse. Unto Him be what, church? What's our theme this year? For His glory. Unto Him be glory where? in the church by Christ Jesus. It's not us. It's Him throughout all ages. That's not just their day. It's our day. World without end. Amen. So be it, God says. Living for His glory. So watch it. Here we go. This is a letter written about a heavenly person to a heavenly people who have a heavenly purpose back in chapter 1 verse 1, who have heavenly possessions. Here's where we get to our wealth. Look over at verse number 3, okay? We're going to look at it again because there's three words I want you to underline. He said, "...Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings." And then he tells us where they're at in heavenly places in Christ. Now that doesn't mean that you can't tap into them. Just because they're in heavenly places doesn't mean that you can't tap into them, because these aren't physical blessings. Okay? Now listen, I may bear the Broil Hill name, but I can't sign my name and get into the Broil Hill bank account. My wife has it shut out. No, I'm kidding. You say, was that in your notes? No, that's one of my ad libs that gets me in trouble. Listen, just because this is in the bank of heaven doesn't mean that I can't withdraw resources. Doesn't mean that. We're going to see that, and we're going to unpack it. Look at these three words, all spiritual blessings. That word all, and we're going to come back to it again in the next messages, means every kind. All. Not most, not some, but all of them. That means all inclusive of every kind of blessing. That means that God has given me every resource that I need not only to live life successfully for Him now, but also in the life to come. God has fully equipped me. It's the same idea of being complete in Christ in a sister epistle, the book of Colossians. Now, watch this. Ephesians is the New Testament counterpart to the Old Testament book of Joshua. Remember when we was in Joshua? Possess your possessions. Grab hold of all that's yours. Alright? That's the Old Testament. The Jews conquered Canaan. They took the promised land. All that God had for them, all of their blessings were tied to that land. They're God's earthly people. They're still God's earthly people. God still has a plan for them. Don't ever lose sight of that. There's our material blessings that have to do with the land and the inheritance of the land. Remember Christians, in this particular dispensation of grace, we are God's heavenly people. God hasn't promised us a land. God hasn't promised us material wealth and material blessings. He's given us spiritual blessings. Theirs is in a place and ours is in a person. And He said there are all kinds of them. Everything unique, God said, I have it for you in My Son. And Ephesians is going to teach us how to possess our possessions, how to draw on those spiritual resources. We're going to unpack what they are and then how to live them out in our everyday life that God has stored for us in the heavenly places in Christ. And I'm just going to let you in on a secret. You'll never exhaust His resources. I want you to give you two of them in verse 2, and we're going to be done this morning. Notice, if you would, two spiritual resources. He very outset of the letter hadn't even told them they had any resources yet, and he tells us two of them. Look at verse 2. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, preacher, that's in every epistle. That's because God knows everybody needs grace and everybody needs peace. I'm thankful that before we ever get into any other treasures, any other blessings, any other spiritual riches that God's given to us, at the very outset He said, I want you to have grace. Grace is going to be mentioned a dozen times in this letter. It's the sweetest word in the Bible. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. Boy, what a wonderful word that is. Grace. It's just sweet. It's just sweet to say it, isn't it? Grace. Grace. Greater than all my sin. Boy, you ought to just maybe sit down this week a little exercise and write down all the songs you know that has the word grace in the title. That'd be interesting, wouldn't it? The unfathomable love of God lavished on undeserving sinners like you and me, uncaused, undeserved love, loved us when we were unlovable. Oh, we were strangers and aliens and foreigners, and God's brought us nigh because of His grace. It's no wonder that Paul's going to pray a little bit later on that we could know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge. Oh, friend, grace and salvation. Let me tell you what grace does, okay? You ready? I'm almost finished. Grace meets us at the point of our need and brings to us God's resource. For some, it's salvation. Aren't you glad for the grace that saves today? Maybe you're here and your sins have never been forgiven. You don't have the assurance that I'm talking about. Hey, you can have all the wealth of this world, friend, and you can be a pauper so far as eternity is concerned. God wants you to know His grace and salvation today that His Son that He gave for you died for your sins, was buried three days later, rose again. And friend, He offers eternal life and forgiveness of sin. Listen, life in Him. If He didn't give us anything else, what a treasure that I'm going to live forever in Him. And then I get to live for Him down here. How great can that be? It can't get any better than that. Grace! But listen, grace doesn't just save me. Grace sees me through and sustains me and strengthens me. Thank God for amazing grace today. Oh, there's strength for the journey. What a joy that is. I'll tell you what, I don't know about you, but there's times my journey gets tough. Does your journey get tough? There's times that my journey gets hard and it gets rough. I'm thankful for the smooth side of life at times and the sweet sailing of life, but I've always found there's a rough side of a mountain coming somewhere, and I'm just glad that no matter what my day is, God said, so shall my strength be. There is grace for every step of the journey. Listen, we ought to just stop and say, Lord, thank You for grace today. Hmm. Are you availing yourself of grace? By the way, if you're bitter this morning, you've failed the grace of God. If you're unforgiving this morning, you've failed the grace of God. Did you know that? You have. God's grace is sufficient, not only to forgive my sin, but to give me victory over my sin. Isn't that amazing? But He doesn't stop at grace. He said, Grace be to you. And He's talking to believers here because not only do sinners need grace, but saints need grace. We'd all say, Amen, wouldn't we? And peace, notice who it's from. From God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. And I just want you to know that our Father and His Son, our elder brother, the Lord Jesus, wants you to know that their grace and their peace is available to you at all times in every situation. Isn't that precious? What a greeting. See, it'd be one thing for, you know, and I like it when my wife writes me a little note. You know, it's amazing how that texting has created love notes. All you have to do is just send an emoji. It's just bad when you send an emoji to the wrong person. You know? The last thing I want to do is send a kissy emoji to one of the guys on my staff. I'm going to send it to my wife. But you know, you make sure you hit that right. One of my preacher friends, his wife had passed away. He was an older man. Wife passed away, but all the guys on staff knew that he was getting ready to get engaged because they were starting to get kissing emojis and heart emojis, you know, and they knew it wasn't for them. They had to be somebody else in the picture. And it wasn't long, he told them that he was engaged, getting ready to get remarried. But you know, God's saying to you right now, I love you. And I want my peace and my grace to be prevalent in your life. And I want you to avail yourself of the resources that I have for you. I don't want you to live life without it. I'm glad for peace. We talked about that in another message a few weeks ago. We talked about the Prince of Peace. It's personal. It's perfect. It's perpetual. All peace. God wants you to have peace with Him. Dear friend, if you're not saved today, you're the enemy of God. You may not realize that. You may say, no, I love God. Friend, listen, I would have said that too before I was saved, but I was in rebellion against Him. I wanted my way rather than His way. But then when I got saved, I realized I'd been an enemy of God. Didn't even know it. And God gave me peace with Him. I threw up the white flag of surrender, Lord. And then once you have that, he said, I want you to experience my peace, the peace that's from me. We call that the peace of God, peace with God, peace of God. And see, not only do unsaved people need peace, but saved people need peace. I need peace. Do you need peace? I need it. You know, there's times in our life, we talked about that rough side of the mountain. It gets in turmoil and we're rolling and pitching and reeling almost like waves of the sea, you know, and all of that. I thought about this a minute ago. He's still the master of the sea. He can still step up and say, Peace, be still, and there'll be great calm. Christian, His peace is yours. It's a treasure. It's a spiritual blessing that's yours in Christ Jesus. The Bible said, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee. Do you realize I've found that if I lack grace and I lack peace, it's not God's fault, it's mine? I'm living like a spiritual pauper. I'm not availing myself of the treasures and the blessings that God's given to me in His Son. Why don't you take hold of His grace this morning? You say, Preacher, I don't know if I'm going to make it. Oh, grab hold. Why don't you ask Him for another measure of grace? Preacher, my life's rocking and reeling right now. I did a funeral of a man that lost his brother, his mom, and his dad in 13 months. That was Ross's family. All the immediate family, but one son's in heaven right now. In 13 months. Can you imagine that? And I know there's people that have experienced worse. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Aren't you glad that God didn't measure how much the turmoil had to be to give us grace and peace? He just said when you need it, it's there. It doesn't matter what it is. You may not be going through what I'm going through, and I may not be going through what you're going through, but God's grace, dear child of God, is yours this morning, and His peace is yours. You need to avail yourself of it. Ask Him for it. Live in it. Trust Him for it. Believe Him. Christian, listen to me. I'm done. All of heaven is at your disposal. That's what He's telling us in these opening verses. No excuse for me to live less than God intended for me to live. Young man, young lady, if you're saved today, there's no excuse for you to live worldly. Dear Christian, listen to me. We don't have to do what everybody else is doing in the break room. We don't have to watch what everybody else is watching. We don't have to live like everybody else is living. We don't have to walk the way everybody else is walking. We don't have to be who we used to be. I have been set apart from that. I am a saint. And there's no excuse not to live as God's saint. God didn't say perfection. Didn't say that. But there's nothing wrong to striving to be in all that God wants us to be. What do you think? And to be holy. That's the word God uses. God doesn't use the word perfect. He uses the word holy. Are you holy today? God wants you to possess everything that's yours. Why don't you right now, this first message, some may need to slip forward and deal with some unsaintly areas or attitudes or actions in their life. There may be someone and say, Preacher, I need to be saved today. I'm going to invite you to come. Here's what I'm going to ask everybody that names his name to do today. As we begin to embark in this study together through the book of Ephesians and learn of our great wealth in him, that you would say, Lord, right now, I want to determine to be all that you want me to be today for your glory. Lord, You've blessed me with all spiritual blessings in Christ. I'm rich in You. I want to possess all that You have for me. Lord, I may have been, and I'm ad-libbing here, but maybe You could say, I've been saved 30, 40 years. God, I don't think I've ever really tapped into everything You have for me. God, I want to live my life for Your glory from this day forward in the wealth and the riches of who I am in You. Would you make that your prayer? Would you make that your commitment? Would you make that your determination? I promise you, if you do, your life will be changed by the time we get to chapter 6. You won't be the same. But I can promise you this, you'll only be different if you want to be. The question is, do you want to be? Let's bow our heads in prayer.