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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.
Hello To The Saints
Series Ephesians Our Riches In Christ
| Sermon ID | 130221627327530 |
| Duration | 38:10 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Ephesians 1:1-2 |
| Language | English |
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