Let's start with a word of prayer. Our Father, we come to you on this Sunday before this time that we celebrate the sending of your Son to enter our world, to take on human flesh, to live that life, being tempted in all things as we, and yet without sin, and volunteering to go to the cross and bearing our iniquity through the three hours of darkness and then declaring it is finished. Wonderful word spoken. that being put into the tomb and arising three days later. We thank you for that, what it means for all of humanity, for all of eternity, and how it stands as a story that has changed the world and changed many more human hearts. We ask that you would be with us this time as we look deeply at your word, and we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. We will start in Ephesians. All right. Ephesians 1, verse four, we'll start just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will. to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, excuse me, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us. So the last couple of weeks, I didn't know it was gonna take this long, but seeing those words according to the riches of His grace. What is the definition of the riches of His grace? How many different ways are there to think of and ascertain the riches of His grace? I'll summarize what we did last week. We covered these truths that we're freed from the curse of the law. What a wonderful thing that in Christ we're freed from the curse of the law. We have victory over death. You think of death and how terrifying it would be. I can't, other than my the witness of my conversion, the time in my life where I felt like I fully understood salvation, that was probably the truest understanding of the fear of death that I had had, and it was but for a brief moment. Since I've mentioned it, I will. What I think of as my time of salvation was being prayed to by my mother, laying in bed. And for some reason we did the little prayer, when you lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. And all I remember was, if I die before I wake, And I still have an image in my head, I don't know, it just came to me, of a black background and a white figure walking with a child in hand away from me. So my image was that I was here and he was walking away. So my thought was, am I that person being walked with? Or am I, where I am watching it, walk away? But the thought was, I knew of my sin. And at that moment, I knew of all the Sunday school teaching and all of the Christ died on the cross for my sins, but I hadn't apprehended it. It was just a remote story, right? It was like I could tell you the information, but all of a sudden, at this moment, I was grappling with if I die before I wake, and it was terrifying, because my thought was, that's not you walking with this one in white walking away. I remember saying something to my mother, and she was like, oh, you know, Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and just, oh, yeah, like, that's for me, right? So this idea of victory over death, fear of death, terrifying outside of Christ, and I can only remember a split second of it, where I was comforted then by, yes, Christ died on the cross for my sins. And then just like, problem solved. Just what a glorious thing that the fear is not there anymore. I know dad has told the story when he was wrestling with that and he yelled for his mother to come upstairs and she said, yes, in a minute. And he was terrified that a minute could be too long, right, to get the true message of salvation. All right. Victory over the fear of death. Transferred from the kingdom of darkness, so Satan's realm, to light. in Jesus Christ. In that transfer, there is a new master, Christ as a new master. Not your own, you've been bought with a price. That's that redemption that we're dealing with. And then God says, I'm calling out a people for God's own possession. So a people for his own possession. He made those in Christ a kingdom and a priest to God. You think of these words in Ephesians, riches of His grace. Do we even get that weight of the riches? And then the word lavished. I don't know why I always think of this, but I think of, smearing for some reason, lavishing, okay? I think of the piece of toast that really only needs a little bit of jelly, but it just gets super loaded, way more than it needs, okay? This is the grace, right? Lavished grace upon us. Freed from slavery to the world, crucified to the world, including lust of the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life. In this state of redeemed, redemption, in this state of in Christ, in this state of salvation, we're given forgiveness, eternal redemption. Not just temporal redemption, eternal redemption. were adopted as sons. This is one that, as I contemplate, I'm always moved to emotion. For some reason, the poor orphan being adopted into the richest, most glorious family is just beyond understanding. Justified, filled with Holy Spirit, and given the assurance of salvation. We should have an assurance of salvation from God's word. All right. Then we went on to our response. We're supposed to live this way. We're supposed to live up to that calling, which is consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God. Do not let sin reign. Present your body to God. Remember your redemption at his death. Proclaim his death until he comes. That's what we're out there telling people. You know, some people struggle with, should we celebrate Christmas because of the trees, and is it idolatry, and did it come from, other places mixed with some pagan things. And if you think about it, it's like Easter is purely Christian. I mean, it's only in the church really that we celebrate Easter. But Christmas is something that everybody's doing. And it's the only thing. So we should take advantage of this opportunity to share Christ. Certainly we're not bowing down and worshiping our Christmas trees, right? And if we are, we got other problems, okay? But it's a time of celebration and that the real reason that we celebrate is for that he sent his son for us. So let's use this time as an advantage. There's so little left in our culture that is Christian, right? And it certainly, even if some aren't, apprehending it as Christian, we should be, and we should be reminding those that this is a time of celebration for Christ. So I think of that in this statement, proclaim his death until he comes. Walk in the light. Lay aside deeds of darkness. Put on Jesus. Stop making provision for sin. Glorify God. All right, and then new material, do not love or be conformed to the world. This is under the category of our response. 1 John 2.15 is do not love the world nor the things in the world. Romans 12.2, and do not be conformed or shaped by the thinking, those are my words, shaped by the thinking or the priorities of the world. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. And then James 4.4, you adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. And the next category, be zealous for good deeds. Titus 2.14, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. And then you can turn with me here, because I want to read this whole passage. Romans 8.18, looking forward to our future redemption. Romans 8.18, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subject to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope, we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he already sees? So what's he saying here? He's saying that this is by a faith, apprehension by faith these things. We're not in our new bodies, we're not past death, right? We are confidently apprehending these truths in our everyday life and doing it through faith. For if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. Hopefully that's us, right? That this is a description of us. Verse 26, in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the heart, knows what the mind of the Spirit is because he intercedes for his saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose. And then the next verse on that subject is for future, is 1 John 3, 3. And everyone who has this hope fixed on him, on Christ, purifies himself just as he is pure. Next category is God's redemptive love on the cross should constrain us. So as we contemplate his sacrifice on the cross, it should have an effect on our lives. We can't go from here understanding the cross and live as we would and as the world lives. So 2 Corinthians 5.15, and he died for all so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf for this great sacrifice. All right, the last thing to deal with here is this concept of the bride of Christ. I think it's, I mean, this is not an exhaustive list, but it's just things that are things that are ours in Christ. And this last bit of revelation is just such another glorious thing up there with adoption as sons for me personally, is being the bride of Christ. Second Corinthians 11, two, For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. For I betrothed you to one husband so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. You might say Christianity is really, really simple, and you might say Christianity is really, really complicated. But really, it's really, really simple. Pure devotion to Christ, right? The complicated part is digging out and finding all of the places Christ is in scripture, because it's everywhere and all throughout. And then Ephesians 5.25, husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. verse 26 and 27, "...so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless." So, the church of Christ, all of the true believers that make up the body of Christ are going to be presented to God as the bride of Christ. We see this in Revelation 19, our last verse on this rapid fire summary of redemption and riches of His grace. Revelation 19, 7-9, let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to Him. for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And then he said to me, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the land. And he said to me, these are true words of God. So here we have the final sort of completion of the marriage supper, which is this body of Christ. This bride of Christ is presented for the marriage supper in heaven. I believe after the rapture, during the tribulation. All right, back to Ephesians. Just summarize the end of this passage. How about the song that we sing? Redeemed? How I love to proclaim it. Do you? Do you love to proclaim it? Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed through His infinite mercy. Mercy, grace, redemption. His child and forever I am. Great, great verse from that hymn. When we look at all of Ephesians that we've gone through so far, it's just a one after another excitement by Paul explaining what we have in Christ. Words are shallow compared to sometimes feelings. That's why I think so many songs and books have been written on love. If it was easy to capture with words, it would be easier to write. But what Christ has done for us that is being presented here by Paul is just overwhelming as we think about it. This grace that he freely bestows is free, full, and abundant. I want to bring out, these are just a few little summary things that I wanted to bring out in verse six. to the praise of the glory of his grace. Where's the focus directed here in this verse six? The glory of his grace. It's the praise of his glory of his grace. So it's directed towards him. So it's praising God for this grace that he's bestowed. But then in the very next verse, it goes the other direction. according to the riches of His grace. This is focused on us, right? When we read that, we're like, that's why we did the summary of all the things that we get from God that would constitute this riches and this lavishing of grace upon us. So then I would ask the question, do we know the riches of His grace? Do you know the riches of His grace? Now there's two things that I'm asking when I'm asking that question. The first one is, do you know it in terms of have you experienced the riches of His grace? I'm asking, are you in Christ? Have you accepted His sacrifice on the cross? Then the second thing I'm asking is if you have accepted Christ, if you are in Christ, if you do have the riches of His grace, but you don't read your scriptures, you might not know what those riches are. If you're not in prayer, right, you're not in fellowship with your Savior, you might not know the riches of that grace. Life may overwhelm you very easily because you're not anchored deeply in the riches of His grace. So there's two parts to that. Most important one is to know his grace experientially, meaning to be covered by the blood of Christ. And then certainly as believers that we need to be, I think I said eternally minded, thinking as long term as an eternal perspective with respect to his grace. The other thing that I wanted to just have your mind switch to, one way that came to me in the glory of His grace and the riches of His grace was that we weren't pleading for it. Have you ever heard the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? The idea that If you just persist and persist and persist that finally the guy that you're asking or the mother or whoever that you're entreating, relents. Okay, all right, all right, you can go do that. Yes, I'll give you that, right? Just so that I can be left alone. Think, was mankind pleading for this? Was mankind pleading for God to do this? Was mankind globally on their knees? No, in rebellion still. And he reached out and did this. As I was contemplating that, I'm thinking this is a gift when it's not even asked for. It's like I'm giving you the greatest thing in all of eternity, and you don't even know you need it. He's doing this from eternity past for his good pleasure. So that's an interesting thing to think about the riches and lavishing it upon us. We weren't even asking, right? Mankind was barging on ahead after the fall. In rebellion, really. Did God give barely adequately? Is it just enough, just barely enough? And this is something I mentioned last week, but I'm gonna visit it again. If we think that He tallied every sin up to the point of our salvation and just paid it to the penny, that's enough, okay? I think that there's some element of that in our minds. And then as believers, when we find ourself in sin, we're like, it's a new one. It's a new sin, not covered. Now certainly we should, it's a complex relationship between sin and our thoughts towards the Lord. Certainly we're embarrassed by it. Sometimes if it's made public, it's, You know, shameful can result in the consequences of it, if it's something illegal or, you know, we can really suffer shame and all these things. We can hurt people and their families and loved ones. In terms of, and we haven't done our witness for Christ any favors. We get labeled hypocrites, and rightfully so in that situation. But in terms of our relationship with the Lord, as David said, against thee and thee only have I sinned. And it's great sin where so many people were affected. What he was focused on was Lord, man, I've sinned before you, okay. This grace is all sufficient and it was a A blank check isn't the right word because it seems like it's a license, right? It's not a license to do as you will. It's not a license to send more, but it is covered adequately, sufficiently. So he didn't give just barely adequately. He also didn't just give in a miserly way. We know that by lavished, the word lavished. He lavished grace abundantly in an overflowing way. All sufficient, paid in full, tetelestai. If you think about it, that tetelestai, for us, before any of us were born. What does that mean? He's looking at your whole life. And if you sin as a believer, you're thinking, since I became saved. He's not, no, I know every sin of Jonathan Whittles in the 2000s and the 1999s and the 1980s and the 1970s, right? I've got it all, it's all under account. And he declared, paid in full, all sufficient. That word, tetelestai, is in the perfect tense in Greek, which indicates that the action was completed in the past with ongoing present effects. So it's something that we can still declare now, paid in full, tetelestai. This is going backwards a bit. Do we see our future sin covered, right? Thank goodness our future sin is covered, right? So, just since we're on that topic, 1 John 1, 9. Let's go there. How are we to deal with sin post-salvation. 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So what are we to do? We're to acknowledge it with him, privately, right? And we don't have to go before a priest and confess in a box. in some building, we can do it right now, right away, in our mind. Oh Lord, forgive me. And then we basically acknowledged it and asked for forgiveness right there. One of the reasons why I like the hymn, it's my favorite hymn, is near the cross. Jesus, keep me. near the cross. There's that simplicity of Christ, right? Just keep me near the cross. There a precious fountain, free to all who will go to the cross, a healing stream flows from Calvary's mountain. Near the cross, a trembling soul. This is the verse that I would say is the salvation point. Near the cross, a trembling soul, love and mercy found me. I found love and mercy? Yes, but no. Love and mercy found you. This is that I've made my peace with God. No, no, no. If you're saved, God's made his peace with you. Love and mercy found me, there the bright and morning star shed its beams around me. There's elements of light from darkness to light. Third verse, what's important? Near the cross, right? Each verse, near the cross. O Lamb of God, bring its scenes before me. So verse two, I say salvation. Verse three. bring its knees before me, help me walk from day to day with its shadows, or me. The shadow of the cross. You can see your shadow on the ground. Well, if there's a cross over you, it's always wherever you look. It's around you somewhere, the cross. Last verse, near the cross, That's where we need to be, after salvation. I'll watch and wait, hoping, trusting, ever, till I reach the golden strand just beyond the river. So that's death. So this is a great example, right, of our walk. Okay, moment by moment, it's the cross in Christ, is it salvation? And then it's every day in our walk, all the way until we die. And just an aside, this hymn illustrates the problem with a one-time salvation checkbox kind of easy-believism Christianity. Well, is he saved? Well, when he was at vacation Bible school, he went up. Okay. Is he still near the cross? Is he watching, waiting? Well, no, that was it. That was the best it got. Okay. I'll pick on my son. Came back from Montana, wilderness school, the Bible, and what's the, what did you learn? What was the best thing you learned about, what'd you get out of your year there at Montana? Preached the gospel to myself every day. Near the cross. Then the next hymn comes to mind. Rock of Ages. One verse. Nothing in my hands I bring. Right? Simply to the cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress. So, it's like Adam and Eve, right? Naked. They know they're naked. They see their nakedness. They see their inappropriate, their in, They know they're not ready to face God. Naked come to thee for dress. So I think of this clothed in linen bright and clean for the Revelation saints and the bride of Christ in Revelation that we read. So we get clothed, covered. Helpless look to thee for grace. It's all Him. lavished upon us. Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die. You will not come to me that you might have life. Gotta come, right? To be washed. All right. We'll move on to Ephesians The last part of 1-8 next week and onward. All right, let's close in prayer. Our Father, we just love you for what you've done, the sacrifice that you gave, the plan of salvation that was before the foundation of the world. That's a hard thing to comprehend. All aspects of it were thoroughly planned and arranged before the earth was created, certainly before we were created. Brings even greater weight and gravity to what you've done for us. We pray that we would not be so caught up in the world that we miss the grandeur of your riches of your grace that you've lavished upon us. And for those that have not accepted Christ, that's just interested in hearing what this church stuff is about and haven't grappled with their eternal destiny, I just ask that you would be very real to them, that you might bring scriptures to mind that they might turn to you. come near the cross. We ask these things and that you would bless our time. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.