Welcome to Harmony Permanent Baptist Church. Well, if that prayer didn't touch your heart, you're cold this morning. And I've said before that if we come here and we're doing anything that's worthwhile, we're lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ, and that prayer certainly did. And on the one hand, I feel like we could just go eat now. It's pretty well all been said. And so I hope that in what I'm going to try to speak to you about today, I can capture some of those same ideas and and maybe get a glimpse of that same majesty that was just prayed about. I want to look at Second Timothy, chapter one. We'll read a quick snippet here that's very familiar and that will all affirm starting in verse 8 be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord nor of his prisoner but be thou partakers of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. What a wonderful passage of scripture, and it's been mentioned several times over the last couple of months. Brother Sonny has brought it to our attention and spent some time in this passage. And it's sort of been my, I guess it's been a pattern forming as I spoke before you that I'm actually trying to speak about the book of Ephesians and support this notion that the book of Ephesians is a primitive Baptist manifesto. It is a very condensed and short work that covers a tremendous amount of the core doctrines, not only that we affirm, but that we are very distinct on in how we believe those things. It has been apparently a pattern that I've been falling into to try to preach from Ephesians and start by reading something from another book. This one came to mind for me. It was some of these things were heard in the prayer that was uttered this morning. And what I want to do is set your minds on this truth. about the gospel, about what the Lord has done, that it is not according to our works, that he has actually accomplished something, that he did it on purpose and that the gospel makes this manifest. OK, that is a very common thing. Now let's go to Ephesians, because that's where we want to want to try to be here. Ephesians chapter two. And we finished off about verse 10, for we are His workmanship. That's the same thing, right? Something the Lord has done. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. This is something the Lord has done, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Now, let's pick up here in verse 11 and try to take this forward. Wherefore, remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands." There's a lot of talk in the New Testament about Jews and Gentiles. And I want to kind of shake us a little bit today and say, let's think about that word, Gentile. We can get into the church mode of well, Gentiles, one of those words you hear on Sunday morning, you don't generally use the word Gentile in your your weekly conversations with people. But I want to I want to draw our attention to what's being said here. This is talking about us. This is a congregation, I suspect, by and large of Gentiles. So when you see the word Gentile in the New Testament, don't think, well, that's a Bible term. It means you're not a Jew. That's true. It's talking about you. When Paul's talking about he had a ministry through the Gentiles, I think sometimes I have a tendency to say, well, he's saying it's not the Jews. He is saying that. But he's saying the ministry was to us. It's people like us. We're Gentiles. We'll see some things said about this in the next few verses where he's actually doing this comparison between Gentile and Jew here. Verse 12, that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." That passage plainly states that the blood of Christ accomplished something. That distinguishes us from a whole bunch of other people out there who we would regard as brothers and sisters in Christ, but who do not understand nor have the peace associated with recognizing what the blood of Christ accomplished. And what is that accomplished? We are made nigh by the blood of Christ. That is something none of us could do. There's no act you could perform. There's nothing you could do, no righteousness, no good thing that you might proffer up, no religious ceremony. There's nothing we could do to accomplish this work. And it is accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ and the shedding of his blood on our behalf. And we're going to see this again a little bit later, but we'll just point that out now and we'll come back to it in just a bit. For he is our peace. He is our peace. I was thinking about the D-Day invasion, which I believe was June 6th, 1944. Is that right? That was a great military campaign in the history of our country, but a reporter who on June 7th wrote an article that said, we're at peace, we're now at peace, would have been regarded as a lunatic. Because anyone who knows anything about history would say, that was just the beginning of a very mighty struggle and battle that took quite some time to complete at great cost. It would be crazy to regard that day, June 7th, 1944, as a day of proclamation of peace because the battle is not yet over. I submit to you that there are many in Christendom today who are claiming they are preaching peace, but the battle is not over yet. They're saying there's still a whole bunch of stuff you've got to do. In the same way that those troops had to establish a beachhead and then had to go all over Europe and defeat the enemy. They're saying, well, Jesus Christ has established a D-Day beachhead for your salvation. But there's now a whole bunch of battles you've got to fight. You're going to have to ask Jesus into your heart. You're going to have to outrun the devil till you die. You're going to have to accept our water baptism. You're going to have to accept our sacraments. You're going to have to do a whole host of things in order to win the victory. But this verse here says that Christ is our peace. You see the difference there? When we are talking about proclaiming peace to God's people, we're talking about the battle is over. The victory has been won. We're not talking about announcing that we had a minor military tactical engagement wherein we established a beachhead and now if we will just rally together and keep pushing on, we're eventually going to win. That's not peace. That's an announcement that we're still at war and you need to step up and complete a work that this Jesus that's being preached elsewhere in the world did not complete. But he is our peace. You see the difference there? He is our peace. When we announce that we are made nigh by the blood of Christ, we are saying Jesus Christ got the job done. Our warfare is accomplished. It's done. Now, I assure you, In the context of a military engagement, if you were a soldier in the army, so to speak, the difference between going to a soldier who's at Omaha Beach, just went through this horrible battle and telling him, well, we're at peace now, when he knows he's got to fight and may lose his life and do all these sorts of things, he's going to look at you like you're crazy. But if the war is over, And He is our peace and He has accomplished this victory. That message will be met with great joy. That is the gospel message that we have. It is a proclamation of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is accompanied by the assurance that those who believe it are His sheep. They have eternal life. He gives it unto them and they shall never perish. It is also accompanied by the admonition that you should walk in gospel obedience. You should serve him and you should be baptized in the Lord's church. You should serve him. You should present your body a living sacrifice. But it is not according to our works. In other words, just as it says here, we are his workmanship. That's what made it possible for you to hear such a message and say, I believe that because God did a work in you. We're created in Christ Jesus unto good works. The work that the Lord has done in your heart lays the foundation for a life of obedience and service and sacrifice for the Lord. But we're not doing those things. Those things are too late to the party to ever account for your salvation. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." He's talking about between the Jews and the Gentiles. And there was a time in the temple where there was a separation there. There was a recognition across racial lines, if you will, between Jew and Gentile. But what the Lord Jesus Christ did extends across national families. There's no partition there. What he did for the Jew, he did for the Gentile, who were his people, and now they are all united together in Christ and there is no middle wall of partition. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity. He abolished in his flesh the enmity. Even the law of commandments contained in ordinances were to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace. He made peace! He didn't make a potential peace. He didn't make half peace. He made peace. and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." Does that verse say that Jesus Christ reconciled a people to God? Does it say that he reconciled them by the cross? It does. And in so doing, he has slain the enmity thereby and came and preached peace to you, which were far off and to them that were nigh. For through him, we both have access by one spirit unto the father. Now, look, this up to this point in Ephesians, we've seen a lot of references to God, the father. and to his son, and it's sort of gone back and forth between those two, but here we introduce something. Through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. That's a Trinitarian verse in the Bible. You're not going to establish the fullness of the doctrine of the Trinity on any one verse of the Bible, I don't believe. But you have to rightly divide the word and bring a lot of various testimonies together, different scriptures that talk about the oneness of God. First, John five, seven verses like this to talk about them working together, verses that talk about their different covenantal roles, verses that affirm that each of them are God. You've got to pull all those things together. So I don't want to make the case that this verse alone establishes what we believe about the Trinity, but it is certainly a Trinitarian reference. And it would be part of that greater recipe of verses that you'd want to pull together to support that doctrine. And I'll just call this to your attention as we think about the Trinity. As we look through these subsequent verses, look at how many times it bounces back and forth between God, who is the father, Jesus Christ, the Spirit. The Spirit's doing things, Jesus is doing things, the Father's doing things, yet they're all things done by God. So you're going to see this sort of pulled together as we continue on. Now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Now, this is saying the foundation is the apostles and prophets and Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone. There's a lot of folks in Christendom who want to kind of set the prophets and Jesus and Paul and James. All they're all kind of set against each other. And, oh, they don't really agree. We reject that completely. This verse absolutely affirms this. These things are all fitted together and form a foundation upon which our belief is based. And we're going to see some more about that in chapter three, but let's just continue on for now. In whom all the building. Fitly framed together, groweth unto and holy temple in the Lord. in whom ye also are builded together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit. When we gather together, we are individually, as God's children, as individuals, we are indwelled by the Spirit of God. Regeneration imparts the Spirit of God to his children. And so it is certainly true that in an individual sense, each child of God has the indwelling Holy Spirit. But this verse is also drawing out something unique, I think, about when we come together as a body, when you come together as a group of people who are born of the spirit, that there is a special blessing in that from the Lord. I think I've entered into that in some measure today, just in the song service, in the prayer that was offered. It's happened to me on many, many occasions, and I suspect it has a view as well. The Lord said when two or more gathered in my name, that's what I'm talking about. The Lord's right there with us. I believe the Lord's attending our our service even today. He promised that he would. Let's look at chapter 3. For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given to me, you word, how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery as I wrote afore in few words. I want to grab hold of that word mystery because it has been just misused horribly in the context of Christendom. There are many today who want to preach that mystery is something that is absolutely beyond the realm of human comprehension, that it is just something that's sort of a God's logic is not our logic and some sort of notion like this. But if you're looking for something to study this week, and I encourage you all to dig into the word of God, here's a study for you. Go look at the word mystery in the Bible. And go through and look at how the word mystery is used in the Bible and ask yourself the question, is the word mystery talking about something that man cannot possibly know or understand? That's a key question because there are many who will say, well, that's just a mystery. We can't know or understand that. I actually spent some time doing that this week, and it's a good exercise because it begins to affirm that the Bible's definition of mystery is something that was previously not revealed, but that in most instances subsequently is revealed. It's talking about something that is knowable, but for a time was mysterious because it had not been revealed in all of its fullness. OK, so that's an important thing to notice. And I think we'll see this affirmed a little bit further on here. So God, by revelation, made known unto him the mystery. Well, if mystery is something that's not knowable, there's no way it can be made known by revelation. You follow me with that? God made it known to him. So whatever is meant by mystery, it means it is possible to know this. It's possible to understand it, it's possible to teach it and impart it because God has by revelation made it known. To the apostle Paul. Wherefore, whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. Is mystery here something that can't be understood or grasped? He says you can understand it. I'm going to explain it to you in such a way that you can understand it. OK, so bear that in mind. You see it a lot of times in Christianity. If you listen to Christian radio and things like this, you'll hear what I think are really problems with certain theological assertions that people want to make. And they'll say, well, that's just mystery. And oftentimes they're talking about core aspects of the doctrine of salvation that Paul very clearly lays out. But they don't understand it, so they're going to toss it up to mystery, but I'm telling you here, Paul says it was revealed to him. And he has an earnest expectation that he's going to be able to impart what he knows to you. OK. This also affirms. He says, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. There's not any paradoxes in the Bible. And by that, I mean there's no logical paradoxes in the Bible. There's no things that are totally logically contradictory in the Bible. There are things that may be difficult to reconcile. And I don't think Paul is saying here the first time you read one of my books, you're going to get it every bit of it. You're going to understand every bit of it. He's not saying that there may be some effort, some pressing into the kingdom of God that's required before we gain some of these understandings. But what he is affirming is that it can be understood. He's talking about reading what he wrote. So when I say there's no paradoxes in the Bible, I don't mean that, I mean that there are no contradictions in the Bible. There are rhetorical paradoxes in the Bible, plays on words, right? And at first, a play on words kind of hits you immediately and you go, that just doesn't quite sound right. I don't understand that. But it's not illogical. It's just that you have to work through that play on the words to understand what's actually meant. It's a device that is intended to sort of jar your reaction and get you awake and make you think about those things. So the word of God is reliable. Paul believes that we can understand these things. And these mysteries are things that God has revealed. We'll find out some more about that, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit. There are those, particularly those who would want to defend the position of gospel regeneration, who would say, well, all those people in the Old Testament heard the gospel. That's how they were regenerated. There are people who would defend that position. They might even go to a place like the place where it said that the gospel was preached before unto Abraham. See, it said the gospel was preached to him. Well, he had good news preached to him. It also says what was preached. It said, saying, in thee shall the nations of the world be blessed. But if you want to consider that the gospel of the New Testament, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures. There's a huge difference in the amount of content in those two things. OK, and this verse here says that these things that Paul is talking about were not made known unto the sons of men. As it is now revealed, he's not saying there was never anything said. You can find all sorts of things in the Old Testament that are prophecies, premonitions, shadows, types and figures of what the Lord Jesus Christ would do. But they are not revealed in the first Corinthians 15 verses three and four explicit sense that we have the gospel today, nor were they explained or understood in that way. that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel, whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given. That I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery. Which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God. Who created all things by Jesus Christ. Again, this affirms that these truths in the way that they are explicitly discussed in the New Testament by people like the Apostle Paul. were not revealed in that way in the Old Testament. They were hid in God. Now look, knowing these things is a comfort to God's people. I think about Job's statement of he knows that his Redeemer liveth, right? There's things that Job knew. Abraham was a man who had faith. It says that, you know, without faith, it's impossible to please God. And we know that. And he who would come to God must believe that he is. So we know Abraham believed that God exists and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. There are things we can see in the Old Testament that their faith laid hold of. Job said, I know it is so the truth, but how? How should man be just with God? If Job knew the gospel of 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and if he knew the thing that Paul said here, that he is our peace, if he knew those things as explicitly as they're talked about here, why on earth is he saying, how should man be just with God? He says how because it wasn't revealed how. But what was revealed to him is that God is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him, and that, you know what? This problem is going to be solved. And it's not going to be me that does the fixing. It's going to be the Lord that's going to fix this problem. That is what he saw. Because these things from the beginning of the world have been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ. Well, there's another one of those affirmations. Jesus Christ was involved in the creation of this world. and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world have been hidden God who created all things by Jesus Christ to the intent that now the principalities and powers in heaven heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord did the Lord do this on purpose Back in chapter 1 and verse 4, it says, "...according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will." That's what it's talking about here. It's talking about according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. God does things on purpose. He doesn't make a mistake. We chose a people. He did it on purpose. Was not an accident. It was according to his will, not according to our will. It set in motion a plan of redemption. For those people. And he executed that plan and the Lord Jesus Christ is our peace. These are just Things that we don't bat an eye when these things are said. In fact, we listen to them and we say, yay and amen. This is our peace. Nobody's got anything better to preach than this. If you're preaching that, you know, salvation is part of a covenant. And it's part of an unconditional covenant. I could have no peace in believing that my salvation was resting on a bilateral covenant, that half of it was resting on me to get the job done. And I'm telling you, there's a whole bunch of people struggling with that piece. I think there's a lot of those folks who on their deathbed may finally say, you know, there really is nothing I can do. I don't have another day. Well, I'm going to do better tomorrow and maybe I can get it done tomorrow. When you don't have another day to look at, maybe at that point, those people finally do say, you know what? I know it is so of a truth, but how? Because I thought I had to hold up my end of the bargain. And it's evident that I haven't. So if I'm going to live in glory, it's going to be because of what the Lord's done, not because of something. I could have no peace because of the honest purview that I have on my own heart and the weakness and feebleness of my faith. If I thought that was holding up 50% of the covenant of what's going to let me live in glory someday, I would be, of all men, most miserable. We have peace because we know the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished all these things. Which is said here, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. We look at what He did. I don't have any boldness and confidence based on the work that I did. My best day is tainted with sin to such an extent that I deserve hell. All our righteousnesses are as filthy racks. But there's a boldness in view here. And it's in whom? It's in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. You want to be confident in your salvation. Be confident in what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. And see faith as an evidence. Not as 50 percent of the covenant you've got to hold up. Faith is a token, an evidence, it's a fruit of the Spirit. It identifies you as something. It's not holding up the covenant. It's not a condition of the covenant of salvation. It's a provision of the covenant of salvation. It flows out of what God did for us. It's not something we're putting into it to make it a little better. Faith is a provision of the covenant of salvation. Wherefore, I desire that you faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. For this cause, I bow my knees under the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Named in him. That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man. Now he's addressing, we talked about this before in chapter 1, verse 17, I believe it was. He's addressing people who have faith. He said before, I heard of your faith, I'm thanking God because I heard of your faith. The people who have faith, are they saved people? You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you've got everlasting life. So we're talking about time salvation here. He's saying, I hear you're saved, I hear you've got faith, you're the Lord's people, but I'm praying you'd have something in addition to that. There's some other things you can have in this life. And that's what he's talking about. "...that the Lord would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God." This is Paul's prayer for a bunch of people who already have eternal life. If they already have all this stuff, too, why is he praying for them to have that? He wants them to have these things. These are things we can lay hold of in this life as we begin to understand some of these mysteries that have now been revealed by the Apostle Paul. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Some people may say, well, see there, you've got to have faith. And that's how the Lord starts dwelling in your heart. No, it's talking about Your example before of vital faith, academic faith, faith in action. God gives you vital faith. You can learn things academically about the faith, things that can help you. And to the extent that you put them in practice as faith in action in your life, you have Christ dwelling in your heart in a way that is openly manifest before the community and before the church. That's what's being talked about here. If any of us run out of here and spend the next three days hanging over a bar, are we going to say, boy, that's the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling richly in your heart, brother? See what I'm saying? There's an example of how these things are made manifest in how you live, and people look at that and they say, that man, Like Pharaoh looking at Joseph saying, there is a man in whom the spirit of God dwells. There's something about this character. It's not only just some. Oh, well, my religion is a private thing that I don't like to discuss. Now, it's on display for the world to see. And here's his benediction now unto him that is able to do a see exceedingly abundantly all above all. that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages world without end. Amen. Do we believe? Do we really believe? That God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask and think. We do believe that. We don't always practice that. Too often in my life, I find myself praying about something, but the way I pray about it sort of boxes God into, well, you've got to fix it in this way or that way. Here's something that's going wrong. And Lord, you probably should either do this or that. And I suspect you're not any different from me. And I would tell you that when we do that, we are giving evidence to the fact that we really don't enter into this truth the way the Apostle Paul is inviting us to. There are many times when our prayers should be more open-ended about, Lord, here's what's going on. You know it troubles my soul. You know all the various ways in my mind that I think that we might be able to fix it. But Lord, you are able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all I could possibly imagine. So I commit this to you. That's the Lord we serve, whether we always enter into that truth. Probably be called in question, but it's true whether we enter into it or not, and to the extent that we don't, we're missing out on some of the blessing of what Paul's trying to tell us here. That completes the third chapter of Ephesians. I had started off this attempt to try to go through Ephesians by saying that Ephesians is kind of structured as three chapters of doctrine and then three chapters of practice. You know, this is this is what God's done. That's the foundation. Now let's build a house of how we should live on top of that. And I like that way of breaking down Ephesians. I think it's helpful. But now I'm going to go back against it, because I want you to think about this part a little differently. When God tells you what Christ has done, that's doctrine. We need to affirm those things. When God tells us how we should live, that's practice, but it's also doctrine. You follow me with that? The Bible says all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and profitable for doctrine. So that means even the things that are being said in the context of you ought to love your wife, you ought to, you know, you ought to put on the armor of God, all these things that we're going to look at. Those things are doctrine, too, and we need to embrace that all scripture has a doctrinal implication. Yet at the same time, Paul has it structured in such a way that he says, I want to give you a foundation of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. And that is fundamentally the case that he builds in the first three chapters of Ephesians, which we've looked at. We've looked at things about the Trinity. We've looked at things about the sovereignty of God. We've looked at how God's word makes sense. And it's not paradoxical. We've looked at how mysteries are things that are revealed and explained to us. We've affirmed every single aspect of T.U.L.I.N.P. And we've had multiple verses that talk about our salvation in time beyond what the Lord imparts to us in regeneration. We've had verses that talk about immediate Holy Spirit regeneration. So in this doctrinal three chapter piece here, we've covered a very good foundation. And many of those things are things that we are distinct on. Related to. Others who are in Christendom today, if you will. So I look forward in the coming weeks to spending some time going through these next three chapters and looking at the so what. Okay, you told me all that. So what? So how am I supposed to live? Now, many people are very focused on that. I want to hear the do. Tell me what I'm supposed to do. Paul says, don't get so far ahead of yourself on the do. Let me first root you and ground you in the notion of what God has done on your behalf. And you can use that as a springboard to get into what you ought to do. The Lord being my helper, we will attempt to get into that in the coming weeks, but I pray this has been a blessing to you. It's been a blessing to me to affirm these things. and speak to them, hopefully with a measure of clarity, is not trying to handle these truths with kid gloves, but it's just very clearly trying to say, this is what is said here and we affirm these things. And he is our peace. That's why the gospel is good news. Pray the Lord would add his blessing. Thank you for visiting Harmony Primitive Baptist Church.