Book of Ephesians - Ch. 2, Vs. 10-Ch. 3, Vs. 16 (07/22/2001)

His workmanship. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, unto good works, which

God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Walk is energy.

Energy put forth in the mind or body, any movement of energy, mental or physical.

So anything you do is work. There are those that say salvation is of God, but we have to accept it in order to have eternal life.

Is that true? No. What do we do?

Receive it. Salvation is of God without any movement of man whatsoever.

As this walk is not from you as a source, but of God a gift, salvation is a gift to God.

It does not find its source in man. One reason why it is a gift is so that man will not and cannot brag.

If we are God's workmanship, our salvation cannot be of ourselves. We ourselves are a work, the handiwork of God.

The good works, which are the divine aim of our life, should be realized, is implied in their being designed and made ready for us in God's decree and that they are of God's originating and not of our own actions and merit.

It is implied in the fact that we ourselves had to be made a new creature in Christ.

We are handiwork. We are. Wherefore, remember that ye, being in times past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcised by that which is called circumcision, circumcised is the flesh made by hands, 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.

Here the word circumcision means the Jew. It is

Christ's walk, the Christian walk, the eternal walk.

What good is memory? In the Christian walk, what good is memory?

Roger, what good is your memory? Not how good is your memory, but what good is your memory?

That we can keep building on things that God has shown us. All right, to know from where we came.

Another reason, realizing

God's grace. It aids in looking for Christ in all things.

And I hope you are beginning to master that. If you haven't already, it's a great thrill to see his hand in everything and everything in his hand.

Without Christ, this is the best definition that I know of, of a lost person without Christ.

Those without Christ, they promote the growth of vanity and unbridled sensuality and deny the attributes of God.

A person can say as a Christian, go to church at all times, pray in front of men, carry a

Bible so big that he tilts to one side, but if he does not have faith, he's of the devil.

Just that simple. Having no hope.

Have you been to a nursing home and seen the elderly?

I'm sorry to say that this is a picture of having no hope. I knew a man,

I didn't know him personally, but I knew of him. A black man was in a nursing home.

He was quite elderly, but very active. But he had no reason to get up.

He had no reason to eat other than he got a little hungry.

But he had no reason to do anything. He wanted the responsibility of something so bad that he created a trash route.

If you would put your trash can outside your front door in the nursing home, he'd come around, pick it up, all of them, and take it and dump it.

He created a need. But most people are without hope.

If you want to see how that really, really works, just go visit a nursing home.

But now in Christ Jesus, ye who were sometimes far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

For he is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of our partition between us.

He made the Jew and the in the 13th verse, who is he talking about?

That's right, talking about the Gentile. But now he's made us one in Christ by his peace, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances for to make in himself of twain or two one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto

Christ in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby in his flesh, abolished in his flesh.

Do you know how important it was that Christ came in a body of flesh,

Virg? It had to be that way, because we're in the flesh.

So he abolished sin in the flesh, means he come in the flesh as we were in the flesh.

He is our peace. The natural man is at war against God, not with God, against God.

God has decreed this for our good and for praise to his glory, that the flesh would be at war against God.

And came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh, for through him we both have access by one spirit unto the father.

Let's talk about the word access. As you use it in English, I have access to so -and -so.

I want you to tell me what it means. Russell, what does the word access mean?

All right. Roger, what does the word access mean?

All right. Greg, what does the word access mean?

All right. That's what I was waiting on. Who said that?

An open door? All right, that's the third party. To have access to a person means that some third party known by the party of the first part and the party of the second part introduced to have access to a person means that some third party known by the party of the first part and the party of the second part introduces the party of the first part to the party of the second part and the party of the second part to the party of the first part, making both parties able and willing to communicate.

All that means is that you want to meet or need to meet my wife.

You don't know my wife. You can't come into her presence unless I know you and know her.

The party of the third part can take you and introduce you to her.

This is what Jesus did. This is what Christ did. He introduced us to God the

Father. He was the party of the third part. Without Christ in there, it wouldn't have happened.

Now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens of 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. Household of God.

Beautiful words. This is the family of God. The family is the first and oldest institution of man.

The family. Think about it. Are built.

This is a passive verb. It means already done. The subject there is understood as you.

In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the

Lord, in whom ye also are built together for a habitation unto

God through the Spirit. It is through the Spirit that this occurs.

Why through the Spirit? Roger, why through the

Spirit? Why through the

Spirit? In whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God through the

Spirit. Why is it broken out separate here?

All right. This family that we're in, we all agree that we're part of the family.

It's not a physical family. It's a spiritual family. It is through the

Spirit that you're in that family. It has to be because it's not physical.

You are a member of God's family by the Spirit. The Spirit is what puts you there.

Romans 6 and 3. Our Lord does a fitting by placing us where he wants us only.

Chapter 3. For this cause

I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if you have heard of the dispensation of grace of God which is given me to you.

Paul was a prisoner in Rome. The government thought they had jailed him.

They served a warrant. They put him in jail. But who really put him in jail?

God did. When he was in jail, the first or second time,

I forget which, but there was a nobleman in England.

He was required by law to visit the

Roman Catholic Church once a year. He went while Paul was in prison.

He took his wife. They visited Rome, and they visited

Paul. They'd heard a lot about him while in Rome, so they visited him.

They come under conviction. It is by this man that the

Christianity movement was carried back to England. And because of him, we possibly have the church today.

I know that's not the only reason, but that's the reason. Now God ordained it all, but he had to go.

4. How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in many words, few words, whereby when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.

He's talking about a mystery. How many like a good mystery? So do we.

We have to pay attention or we pick the wrong one that's guilty. 5.

But a mystery. Is that the kind of mystery that Paul's talking about? No.

Greg, what is a mystery? All right.

The fact that it is a mystery means it exists. And you don't understand it, but you will in due time.

Jesus revealed things to Paul in a personal way. Paul wants the

Ephesians to know that this doctrine was not just an ordinary opinion of his own or taught to him by other people.

It was revealed by Christ. Paul is saying that when you refer back to this, you will understand what

God has given me concerning the Gentiles. The mystery was the

Gentiles were accepted into the church. 6.

Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the spirit, that the

Gentiles should be fellow -heirs and of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ by the gospel.

All of this was done by the Holy Spirit in due time. Example of mystery.

There's a man, solitary traveler, lands upon some unknown coast before sunrise.

Everything is clouded in fog. It's mysterious. He can't see what's ahead.

He peers the best he can. He makes out maybe what he thinks is a church steeple, but it might just be a tall tree.

He goes on. He presses forward as the sun begins coming up.

That which he takes to be a spire may be only some tall and upright tree.

Yet he goes on, believing, hoping, seeking. When the sun arises, the mist disappears, uncertainly rolls westward over thick clouds of obscurity, and all the landscape brightens beneath his view.

This is a Christian. As he knows there's something here, and he digs and he digs, and the mist begins to roll away, and he sees it, and it's plain and clear.

That's the way learning happens. There was a man sharing with me things that he had learned this week, and it's all just like this.

We read it. We know there's something there, and the more we study, the more we begin to see, and as the mist rolls away, it's all very, very clear.

Whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, in this grace given that I should preach among the

Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Unsearchable riches.

The effectual working of Christ. What is the word effectual?

What does it mean, Clarence? Effectual. That's right.

Exactly. If it is effectual, the effect works. The effectual working of Christ means that his work works, that I should preach among the

Gentiles, of all people Gentiles, the Jews thought of them lower than a dog, the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Burge, what are the unsearchable riches? All the things that God has for us, his blessings, his truthfulness, his knowledge, his ability to understand.

I just think that's what I would say, Clarence. Diane, unsearchable. More than we can understand.

We could go on forever and never touch what it is.

Unsearchable riches, their value is not fixed, their abundance is unexplorable by want and desire, their supply is inexhaustible by enjoyment and use.

They are unsearchable, not capable of being discovered by search. This mystery cannot be discovered by human reason.

Do you go along with that, Greg? Christ is not one ounce poorer for all the forgiveness which he has given away.

Is that true? There is sufficient power in his power to save us now as there was at the very beginning.

His riches are truly unsearchable. And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers and heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God to the principalities and powers.

It's been there all of the time. Everything came out of God. Is that true?

Everything. The church came out of God.

Is that true? It wasn't known in the

Old Testament. They knew there was something there and they searched for it, but they could not find out.

And no one can find out until God decrees that they find out.

Before there was anything, God was all alone. He had all things in himself.

Everything that is has come from God. They were all in God.

You and I were in God just as you and I were in Adam. If you could have shaken hands with Adam, you would have shaken the hand of all the billions of people that came from Adam.

God has shown us only a part, a very, very small part of himself by letting us see his creation.

Think of what he's not shown us that still exists in him. How can there be anything left that we don't know?

Do you ever get to that place in your thinking that it's all been exposed?

Back in the very early 1800s, they considered closing the patent office because everything had been invented that was able to be invented.

Now, he was beyond firing. He was too high, but he considered closing it because everything had been invented that's going to be.

Well, it's like that today. Principalities and powers here, they speak of angels, holy angels.

We see by this verse that the angels do not have prior knowledge of God's happiness. The church thus becomes the university for angels, and each saint is a professor.

Only in the church can the angels come in and come to an understanding grace of God.

The angels don't understand that. They don't understand his grace, his love. They understand nothing except as we react to it.

According to the eternal purpose, which he purposed in Jesus, in Christ Jesus our

Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by faith in him, we have this third -party access

I'm talking about. We can go into the presence of God by Jesus Christ.

Eternal purpose, anything eternal has no end, and therefore, it has no beginning.

We have an open face with freedom of speech. Wherefore, I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What does it mean to faint, to faint not? What does that mean?

To not get discouraged. My tribulation,

Paul rejoices in his tribulations. The greater the office of the sufferer, the more the affliction, which he was content to endure for them, rebounds to their honor.

And the better this was understood by them, the less should they give way in weakness and discouragement.

The greater the office of the sufferer, Paul held a high office in my estimation, and he suffered a lot in my estimation.

Of whom we, of whom the whole should be every family in heaven and earth is name, that we would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his

Spirit in the inner man. Strengthened, this strengthening was to take effect by means of power imparted or infused by the

Holy Spirit into the inward man. The inward man here refers to the personal, rational self, the moral

I, the essence of man, which is conscious of itself as a moral personality.

The strengthening was to take effect by means of the power that's been imparted to us.

By the power of Jesus Christ, I can do certain things by his power only.

Okay, we'll start with verse 17 next time.

Is there anything anybody'd like to add? But their glory for his persecution, that's 13.

Yeah, desire that you faint not at my tribulations, is that it?

My tribulation, Paul rejoices in his tribulations just as we should rejoice in our tribulations because we know that tribulation is the effect of the cause which they put against us.

Because I'm being persecuted, it must mean I'm forgotten. So, wherefore,

I desire that you faint not. Don't lose courage because of what

I'm undergoing. Don't lose sight of the goal. Don't, help me out,

Greg, don't become discouraged because of where I am and what's being done to me.

The very fact that this is being done to me should give you great honor. That's backwards the way man thinks.

Just exactly, just turn backwards. That's right.

But we should be very, very careful if we brag about it. Anything else?