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If you have your Bibles, we'll
be in the book of Ephesians once more this evening. But this time we'll be in Ephesians
chapter one, Ephesians chapter one, looking at verses three
through 14. Ephesians chapter one. verses 3 through 14. And as you are turning there,
let me just say, if you were not here this morning, I again
bring you greetings from the First Baptist Church of Provo,
Utah. And I'm so glad that so many
of you came back, but I hear that that's the custom to come
back and worship the Lord. And what a joy it is to be able
to give so much of our time to the corporate worship of God
on his weekly day. So thank you so much for coming
back to worship the Lord with me. And let me just say, if I
can encourage you all with one thing not related to the sermon,
Richard Barcelles was right about y'all. you all are a singing
church. It was such a joy for me to be
up here and have the wall of sound coming at me, but knowing
that it was directed to the praise of His glorious grace. And that's
what we're going to talk about tonight is Trinitarian assurance. Trinitarian assurance. And if
you like sermon titles, that's the title, Trinitarian Assurance. And before we get into the text
proper, I just want to say that I feel that there's a problem
in Reformed and Evangelical communities in that we oftentimes lack good,
biblical, balanced teaching on the assurance of the believer. What I preached this morning
about us being predestined for good works and we are God's workmanship,
that is true. The believing Christian ought,
as a way of life, bear the singular fruit of the Spirit in their
lives. And if that is not there, the
church has a right and responsibility to be concerned for that person's
soul. However, I also said that we
oftentimes struggle with sin, don't we? And when we struggle
with sin, when we're fighting with sin, one of Satan's greatest
tactics is to get us that doubt our salvation because we are
not bearing enough good works. We are not bearing enough fruit.
And the tendency is we can oftentimes look inwardly and judge our salvation,
not by the finished work of Christ, dear ones, but by how much fruit
we are bearing. And I would submit to you very
forthrightly that that should not be the case. We should not
be those who look inwardly all the time and constantly judging
as to whether or not we've borne enough fruit, but rather we ought
to be looking to Jesus Christ and more specifically our Trinitarian
God for our assurance. So with that said, I want us
to read this text in its entirety. God's Word, again, says to us
and for us through the Apostle Paul, starting in Ephesians 1,
verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Just as he chose
us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined
us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace, by which he made us accepted in the beloved. Verse
seven, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of his grace. which he made to
abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known
to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure,
which he purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the
fullness of the times he might gather together in one all things
in Christ. both which are in heaven and
which are on earth in him. Verse 11, in him also we have
obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the
purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel
of his will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to
the praise of his glory. In him, verse 13, you also trusted
after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also, having believed,
you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the
guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession to the praise of his glory. Let us bow together. Father, this is your word. You
have spoken to us through it. And we pray and ask as we continue
to worship you this evening in the preaching. May you help me
to preach clearly. May you help your people that
call themselves Sweet Grace Baptist Church to listen well. And may you get all the glory
as we come before you in all of what you have done for us.
And we ask all this in the name of your son. Amen. So I mentioned in my introduction
that we ought to have assurance. Well, in tonight's sermon, I
want to argue that our triune God gives us assurance of salvation. Our triune God gives us assurance
of salvation. And it's very curious to me that
after his greeting in the first two verses, the apostle Paul
to this church immediately opens up in doxology. He opens up in
worship and we know this because he uses the word blessed be the
God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This whole section dear
friends, is one of Trinitarian doxology. You'll see all three
persons of the triune God mentioned in this text if you read closely. And what we see here is that
this doxology, we know from reading the rest of the book that Paul
wrote the Ephesian letter while he was under arrest. He was in
chains. And yet, the very first words
out of his mouth is to praise and bless his triune God. And that ought to be instructive
for us. If anybody had any reason to
be ho-hum and downcast, it would have been the Apostle Paul, who
after a glorious conversion on the road to Damascus, lived a
life that none of us would ask for. People say, oh, I want a
ministry that's glorious. Be careful. You don't know what
you're asking for. The apostle Paul had a ministry
that glorified God and it put him in jail. And in jail, he
wrote this letter. And it says here that he starts
out with blessings. and look at what the text says. First, he says, blessed is the
God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he starts out by blessing
the father and extolling the excellencies of the father. And
then we're going to see in verses seven through 12, that he blesses
and extols God the Son. And then in verses 13 and 14,
I want you to see that the focus is on the Holy Spirit. Now, I'm
going to get a little bit technical here, but I want to set up some
guardrails before we go any further. Theologians have a doctrine that
they have termed inseparable operations. inseparable operations. And what that means is that's
taking in the fact that God is one in essence, that there really
is one God. And by virtue of there only being
one God, that in a very real sense, when one person of the
Godhead does something in redemptive history, they are all doing it
because there's one God. There's a scholar that has an
academic book that is called the same God who works all things. I believe the author's name is
Adonis Fadu. If I mess that up, he'll have
to forgive me if he ever hears this. But Adonis Fadu, if we're
more of the scholarly mindset, has a great treatment on inseparable
operations. And it's a slow read, but it's
a profitable read. So as we talk about each person
of the Trinity. I don't want you to think of
it this way. The Father only elects and predestines,
and the Son only redeems and purchases, and the Spirit His
role is only to seal. His role is only to regenerate. His role is to only open eyes. Do not, do not, do not think
of it in those terms because we know from a wider reading
of scripture that the Father does all these things and the
Son does all these things and that the Spirit does all these
things. But what Paul is trying to do
in his doxology is as some have said, shine the light upon each
person of the Trinity so he can give better glory to all of what
God has done. So with that said, I want us
to look at, with those guardrails, the work in this text of each
person of our triune God. So I told you that in verses
one through six, I want us to see the goodness of the Father
and what He has done for us. Paul starts out in doxology saying,
blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ. Just as he chose us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. having predestined us to adoption
as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the pleasure of
his will. You see here the glorious truth
that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. We have everything we need given
to us by our Heavenly Father. Those spiritual blessings include
our sin being forgiven. include the glorified body purchased
for us. They include the fellowship and
communion of the saints for all of eternity. And it includes
seeing God without sin and without defection and being able to look
upon the face of Jesus Christ and not being cast into hell. We have every reason to rejoice,
dear saints, because God has, as the text says, blessed us
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. How? In Christ. You see how This is
connected to this morning's sermon. We talked about being saved by
grace through faith, and it's about being in Christ, being
unified with Him, being made to to be with Him when before
we could not be with Him because of our sinfulness. Once our sins
are forgiven, dear saints, we are given the very righteousness
of Christ and we are actually put under the shelter of His
wings. We are unified with Him. To be in Christ means that His
righteousness, humanly speaking, is your righteousness. To be
in Christ means that His perfect life is credited to you. To be in Christ, dear ones, means
that you are no longer outside the camp. You are no longer cursed. You are now blessed. to give
you an example from scripture. Remember the baptism account
of Jesus when God the Father spoke from heaven? What did he
say of the God-man who said, this is my son in whom I am well
pleased. Now you listen to this, dear
saint. If you are in Christ, if you've had your sins forgiven,
if you've had your debt wiped away in the doctrine of justification
being declared right before a holy God. God the Father looks at you and
He says this. This is my adopted son. This is my adopted daughter. in whom I am well pleased." Have
you ever thought about that? That in Christ, the way the triune
God looks at you is as if you are just as sinless as He is. Even though you know you're not.
Your sins have been wiped away. You've been declared right before
Him. And there's nothing in heaven,
earth, or hell that will ever make the holy God of the universe
displeased with you. That's what it means, dear friends,
to be blessed with every spiritual blessing. And the scripture says
that the triune God has done this. That God the Father specifically
has done this. and I'm not even to the Son of
the Spirit yet, and that alone should give you all the assurance
in the world. You know what that means? If
you're struggling with sin, dear saint, and we all are, that means
that you can go to God and He's not your judge. He's just as
much your Father through adoption as He is the eternal Son. And you can go to Him in prayer. You can go to Him not as judge,
but as your loving Heavenly Father. If that is not good enough, it
says that God chose us in Him, in Christ, before the foundation
of the world. that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. You see how this connects to
this morning's text? You see how this connects to
all of the Bible that God's election is not only about being born
again, but God's election, the text says, is also about the
holiness and the loveliness of the saints. The text says that
we are chosen in Him. The same way we get the heavenly
blessing is in Christ, the same way we were chosen was in him
through his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. It says before the world was,
God chose us. He chose us that we would be
saved, that we would be holy and without blame before him
in love. Verse five, having predestined
us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to
the good pleasure of his will. We've already talked a little
bit about adoption, but God not only predestined to save us by
being born again, he predestined in the sense that we would be
adopted as well. And this adoption, dear saint,
the scriptures say, is according to His good pleasure. It was God's will to save you. And you know what? If something
is God's will in the eternal mind of God, it's going to get
done. Election has implications for
the perseverance of the saints, for eternal security. You and I may struggle, we may
fail, but God's got us, dear saints. God's not gonna let us
go because to be adopted into his family, who would no sooner
let Jesus Christ go than to let us go. You are as much his son
via adoption as Christ is the eternal son. And the Trinity,
that familial relationship of father and son in the Trinity
can never be broken up, neither can your adopted status as his
beloved children. And that's guaranteed in the
predestination of our salvation. And that's guaranteed in the
election of us and just as sure as we are his sons. It says that
he predestined us to be holy and without blame. Your holiness
is just as much a guarantee as your salvation. That doesn't
mean you'll be sinlessly perfect, but it does mean that you will
bear fruit of the Spirit. It does mean that you will continue
on. and persevere to the end. But
you don't persevere to the end, dear saints, by looking inwardly
to yourself all the time. You persevere to the end by keeping
your eyes upon Christ and looking to him. That is the end goal
of the Christian life, is to behold him and all his goodness
and all his glory. And that's why we see here in
verse six, this adoption, this predestination, this selection
before the foundations of the world, this being blessed with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, it is all to
the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he made us accepted
in the beloved. How often do you think of yourself
as accepted and the beloved in Christ Jesus? Remember I read
from Romans this morning? What'd I say? I said, we are
helpless in and of ourselves. We are sinners. We're ungodly. We're enemies of God. As I said
this morning, that means that we're at war with God. And we
are God's enemy and God is our enemy. How horrible was that? But yet
in the beloved eternal son, in his gospel, the enemies of God
are accepted. The enemies of God are at peace. The enemies of God become friends
even. And we see the focus upon this
beloved in the next few verses. Verses seven to 12. In him, this
is in Christ, in Jesus Christ, we have redemption through his
blood. the forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us all
in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery
of his will according to his, there it is again, good pleasure,
which he purposed in himself. Look at what this text says.
In Christ, we have redemption through his blood. And we know
that God in his essence does not have blood. He is not in
his essence a mortal man, is he? That he would shed blood. But we do know in the incarnation,
the son assumed human flesh And being truly God and truly man,
that truly man really did shed the blood that was inside his
body. That is how he is able to be
the perfect Lamb of God that taketh away the sins in the world,
as John the Baptist proclaimed. In the old Levitical system under
the Mosaic law, they would have to constantly shed the blood
of bulls and goats. And Hebrews tells us the blood
of bulls and goats doesn't take away sin. But this perfect Lamb
of God who shed His divine blood, if I may speak of it that way,
as Him being the God-man, He had a once-for-all sacrifice. And His sacrifice brings about
perfect redemption. His sacrifice brings about total
forgiveness of sins. Remember we talked about acceptance
before that has the idea of reconciliation. You were once an enmity with
God, now you're not. You were once a sinner in God's
sight, but now you're declared righteous. Well, the way he does
that is through forgiveness of sins. And it's not as though
He'll willy-nilly forgive sins. No, no, no. He must have a sacrifice. And that sacrifice, as we know
from the teaching of scripture, is his only son, only begotten
son, Jesus Christ. Look at what the text says. This
forgiveness of sins, verse seven, is according to the riches of
his grace. We noticed similar language in
Ephesians 2, verse four this morning, didn't we? Which says,
but God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with
which he loved us. He is rich, not only in mercy,
but Ephesians 1, verse seven says that he is rich in his grace. Oftentimes we can sing amazing
grace and the words just roll by us because we all know it
so well all over this continent. And when's the last time you've
thought about what the grace of God has saved you from? And what the grace of God has
saved you to? We have so many blessings given
to us by God's grace in the shed blood of his son. It goes on
to say that this grace which he made to abound toward us in
all wisdom and prudence, that in God's eternal wisdom, he decided
to save a people for himself. to the death and sacrifice of
his only begotten son. We'll never understand just how
great our salvation is. We'll spend all of eternity comprehending
the goodness of God and the wisdom of God in salvation. He goes on to say, verse 9, having
made known to us the mystery of his will according to his
good pleasure, which he purposed in himself, and here's that mystery,
dear saints, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times,
he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven and which are on earth, and it's all what in him. Even the consummation of all
things, when God makes all things right, When God does away with
this old fallen world and brings about the newness of the new
creation, it'll all be because of what Jesus Christ has done. And it says, in the fullness
of the times. We long for the day of the fullness
of the times, don't we? That day when all suffering is
done away with that day when all the promises of God find
their yes and amen in the glorious second return of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, if that's not enough, verse
11 says this, in him, in Christ, also we have obtained an inheritance
being predestined according to the purpose of him who works
all things according to the counsel of his will. And here's what
he predestined in verse 12, that we who first trusted in Christ
should be to the praise of his glory. And that trust that we
have in Christ brings to us an inheritance. What do we inherit? Well, we inherit eternal life. We are treated as sons and daughters
of the kingdom, equal status with Christ according to his
humanity in the adoption. We are sons, just like Jesus
Christ is a son as far as status. However, we are not the eternal
son that only belongs Jesus Christ, he is eternally begotten, we
are adopted, but we are brought into the family of God. That's what it means that we
have obtained an inheritance. We are brought into the family
of God. Do you think of yourself that
way? I'm part of God's family. This
church is a part of the family of God. And this family is going
to go on for all of eternity in praise and worship and adoration
and glorification of the triune God. That's what he means when
he says we've got that inheritance. He's bought for us the right
to worship God for all of eternity in spirit and truth without worrying
about sin. anymore and being a part of his
family and being accepted and being beloved in his family. And it's all because he's made
us to trust in Christ. So I ask for those of you that
have trust in Christ, are these truths bringing an amen to your
soul? are these truths causing you
to look to Christ and trust in Christ more because you love
Him and you long to be with Him. You long for that fullness of
the times when all things will be made new, when we'll be reunited
or rather united for the first time with the church triumphant
in heaven. You long for that day, dear saint,
when you'll be in eternal rest. That's why I said this morning,
the gathering of the saints is a slice of heaven on earth. Our meetings today are just a
drop in the ocean of what heaven's gonna be. Heaven is our inheritance. As Spurgeon said, even in this
life, it's heaven to serve Jesus. That's our inheritance. We get
to serve the triune God. And God the Father has won this
for us. God the Son has won this for
us. And God the Spirit has won this
for us. Look at verses 13 and 14. In him also you trusted, after
you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In him also having believed,
you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Do you remember
when and how the Lord saved you? If you do, you may remember the
moment that you trusted the word of truth, that you heard this
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Perhaps you're
here tonight and you got saved under Pastor Jim's ministry.
Perhaps you remember the sermon that he preached. I don't remember
the sermon that the old preacher Brother Roy Ford preached back
in 2006 specifically, but I do remember that the gospel was
clearly presented, that God is good, God is holy, that I am
not, I'm a sinner. I deserve to be justly condemned
before this holy God because I've broken every law he's ever
made. I've broken his covenants. And because I deserve to be judged
and condemned, I had no hope in and of myself. But the good
news, if I can use the language of all of our texts today, is
at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. That Christ
Jesus assumed human flesh. And in his assumption of human
flesh being truly God and truly man, he lived the perfect life. was never a lawbreaker, never
a covenant breaker, fulfilled all of the covenants on my behalf
and fulfilled all of the law on my behalf, but died as if
he had broken everything. He died as if he were a sinner. He died under the just wrath
of a holy God for a sinner like me. And I didn't understand that
in those terms necessarily, but I grew in my understanding of
theological truth. But I knew that I was a sinner
and I needed Jesus. Guess what? Everybody in this
room needs Jesus. Even if you believed on the gospel
40 years ago, you need Jesus today. You need to continue looking
to Him and continue trusting in Him and continue holding fast
to Him as He holds you fast. Look to Christ, look to Christ,
look to Christ. Perhaps you're here and you're
realizing, oh my goodness, I fall under the dead and sins and trespasses
category. I'm a sinner. I've never truly
believed upon Christ. Don't sit here and wonder, dear
sinner, if you're part of the elect or not. Believe upon Christ. Believe upon Him. Trust Him alone
and you can have salvation. You can be, as the text says
in verse 13, sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. It says in verse 14 that this
promised Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until the
redemption of the purchased possession. Once again, to the praise of
His glory. Many of you have bought a house
and you know you have to put a down payment on that house.
Even though you haven't bought the house in full, you now own
the house. The Holy Spirit, in a sense,
His sealing is a down payment, guaranteeing that the purchase
of Jesus was made good, and we are as good as He is. He owns us. We're bought with
the price. We are not our own. But one day soon, in the fullness
of the times, He's going to make good on every promise He's ever
made. Your assurance of salvation will
one day be sight. You will see your Savior, dear
church, face to face. You will know the glories of
glorification. You will one day be sinless.
You will one day have a resurrected body and you will one day be
in sinless communion with the church historical and universal
to the praise of his glorious grace. And as I said before,
he's not gonna let anyone or anything rob him of praise or
glory. And it's because our God in His
triune glory works for our salvation that we can have assurance. Our
salvation, dear ones, is not based in us. It's all based in
Him. The Father, Son, and Spirit will
get the glory that they've set out to accomplish. God gets the
glory in our salvation. He won't lose none of it. And
to lose one of his own would be to fail. He won't do that. So, if you're wondering tonight,
am I truly saved? I would tell you the same thing
I would tell an unbeliever. Look to Christ. Trust in Christ. Look to the cross of Calvary.
Don't look to yourself. Look to Him. And in looking to
Him, you'll bear the fruit of the Spirit. Let us pray together. Father, we love you so much. We pray that you would help us
grow in our assurance of salvation. We pray that when we do doubt,
that you would bring this text to our mind, and that you would
help us to know our salvation's not in us, but it's in you. And we pray and ask that you
would help those who are struggling, that they would find renewed
assurance in the God who works all things. And we pray all these
things in the name of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. ♪ Praise Him, all creatures here
below ♪ ♪ Praise Him, above the heavenly host ♪ ♪ Praise Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ Now may the God of peace, who
brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd
of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you complete in every good work to do His will, working
in you what is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ,
in whom we glory forever and ever. Amen. Please be seated. We'll have a brief time of prayer
when the pianist finishes.
