(Ephesians) a True Theology Produces a True Doxology — Jeff Noblit

Praise According to the Knowledge of God

We come to a section where Paul is going to talk about praising God. So I want to dedicate this message and probably the next, who knows how many, as we go through verse 14 of chapter 1, to our choir and orchestra and our music program.

And by the way, they're only the prompters, we're all the praisers. Amen? But y 'all are good prompters. We like it that way. I enjoy it. It's a blessing to me. But I believe Paul's going to show us some things here that's going to take us even higher and more thorough maybe understanding of what praise is and why we praise.

And I want us to look at it there together. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3. Blessed, and you could just say praise, be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

So he's writing to the church and he says bless or praise God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you rather have some of those peculiar little childhood memories that are not necessarily great happy times or great tragedy?

It's just sort of a little glimpse of a memory in your heart and mind and it doesn't really mean anything, it just never goes away. You'll be driving down the road and that little thought will come back of that little event and maybe it comes up every four weeks or four months.

It's just a little silly thing. One of the things that just I've never forgotten was when I was a little boy we moved into a new subdivision and so for years they were just building new houses out in those old hay fields and pastures there in Lawrence County, Tennessee.

And I used to love to go to those construction sites where those men were building those houses and I just thought it was the neatest thing. Every now and then I could go get them some nails or they'd let me carry a board and I just thought, man, I'm building houses.

It's just great. And one of the older guys had a little phrase out of an old country song he'd just sing over and over. Like he'd be carried a two by four when he throwed it down, he'd just sing out that line.

Or he'd be nailing two boards together when he'd get through nailing, he'd just sing out that line. And here was that line and I don't think this will defile anybody for me to share it with you. But that line was, ruby red lips and coal black hair.

I say right now, some of you remember that song, I guarantee you do. Evidently it was, I've never heard the song. Listen, don't come and tell me the rest of it, I don't want to know it. But I'll just be driving down the road and I hear that old carpenter, ruby red lips and coal black hair.

Well, you know, I got to thinking about that and I thought, you know, I never saw his wife but I bet the odds are good she don't have ruby red lips and coal black hair. And I never saw a woman around the construction site with ruby red lips and coal black hair.

But that song meant a whole lot to him. You know what he was doing? He was just expressing the feelings of his heart and just singing it out. But you know, once a man has known a woman for any time, if he's going to praise her or honor her, he needs to do that according to knowledge.

He needs to know what she's like and what she desires and what she enjoys according to knowledge. And if a man's 25 years of age and he wants to honor his mother and he buys her a gift, he's without excuse if he buys her something meaningless or something she doesn't need at all.

He should honor her according to knowledge. That's what Paul is going to show us here in this text as we proceed down through the chapter in coming weeks. Paul is going to tell us that God wants to be praised and adored and honored and glorified according to knowledge of who he truly is and what he truly has done.

Now listen to me, church. God rejects praise and God rejects honor and God rejects adoration that comes from our selfish feelings about what we think he is or what we'd like for him to be. He wants to be honored and adored and praised and exalted according to who he says he is and what he says he is like.

And that's exactly what Paul is coming to in this text. But just to reaffirm to you how important this is and the reason I want to say this with passion and with thoroughness is this. It seems that in modern Christendom there's just a lot going on that says if you feel it deeply it's wonderful and good.

That's not necessarily so. Is it true? Is it true? Listen to what God says about this. Mark chapter 7 verses 6 and 7. He answered and said to them, He says, you're singing about me. You're worshiping me, but it's in vain.

Why? Because your doctrine is wrong. Did you see what Jesus said? You're not teaching the true knowledge of who I am and what I'm like. You're just doing what feels good to you. And God says that's not acceptable.

Jeremiah 51 verse 17. The Bible says, Now that's talking about the natural man. When you come to Jesus Christ, you come from a state, if you will, of being devoid of the true knowledge of God. And when you are saved and you're truly converted, you begin to learn the knowledge of God.

Now listen. Then you begin a process of maturation in the word whereby you can more fully and truly praise God and glorify God and honor God as you grow in knowledge. But now listen to me, church. Somehow, and I have been guilty here too.

We have connected honoring God and pleasing God with just deep sentiment or feeling, not thorough knowledge and understanding. Are you hearing me? Now I want to go ahead and throw this out and I'll probably tie this in many times.

Now we need both. We don't want just the light of truth without any heart, emotional passion. But you sure don't want heart, emotional passion without the light of truth in your mind. We need to go to the word of God and understand who he is, what he is like, what he has done and how he did it and praise him according to that knowledge.

Not just our deep feeling. Jeremiah 3, 15. Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you on knowledge and understanding. Notice what are these spiritual leaders, these shepherds going to do?

They're going to give you knowledge and understanding of who God really is and what he really has done. And then I'm going to turn to Hosea. If you can get there quickly, you can turn there. But it took me a while, so I put a paper clip in my Bible there.

So just listen to this if you want to. Hosea 4, beginning in verse 1. Listen to what the prophet says here. Listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land.

Because there's no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land. Now wait a minute. This was Israel. They had all kinds of knowledge of God. Now here's what he's saying. He's saying not truly the knowledge of the true God and his true ways.

You've sort of twisted and perverted God to meet your needs. In other words, you've sort of twisted and perverted the truth about God to become your little idol that you're comfortable with. But not according to the knowledge of truth.

So what happened in the land? Verse 2. They're swearing, deception, murder, stealing and adultery. They employ violence so that bloodshed follows bloodshed. Notice what he's saying here. Now listen to me.

When there's not true, accurate dividing of the word of God, preaching of God's doctrine and truth, sin begins to abound. Now here's what happens. Sin begins to abound and we begin to enjoy sin more and more.

But we want to stay religious so we keep perverting doctrine and truth to match or make us comfortable in our sin. And pretty soon churches, Christian people, the professing people of God can tolerate and allow all kinds of unholiness and still call it God's blessing or God's work.

Or call themselves God's people. Verse 3. Therefore the land mourns and everyone who lives in it languishes. Along with the beast of the field and the birds of the sky, also the fish of the sea disappear.

So here in the nation of Israel, they become so corrupt that they're even damaging the physical earth. Verse 4. Yet no one finds fault and no one offers reproof. What he's saying here, there's no real prophet to preach the true knowledge of God and bring them to correction like they need it.

You know why? They're probably having a big time and everybody's happy and most preachers want to be more popular than they want to be respected. And that's what he's saying. They're not finding fault and offering any reproof.

Verse 5. So you will stumble by day and the prophet also will stumble with you by night and I will destroy your mother. Verse 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Notice the four words there.

You have rejected knowledge. And I'll also reject you from being my priest since you have forgotten the law of God. I will also forget your children. So what was the key factor there? They don't want to learn who God truly is.

They don't want to use their minds. They don't want to be disciplined in their understanding. They don't want to hear the disciplines preaching of the word of God or have any disciplined Bible study in their life.

They just want to have a good time. Well, God rejects that. Hosea chapter 6, verse 6. He continues. For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice. Now listen. In the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Instead of in shallowness and just emotional based sentimentality going through your religious observations. God says, I don't want that. I want you in your heart and in your mind and understanding knowing who I am and praising me because you're in awe and you're in wonder over who I truly am.

And that's understandable to us as human beings, is it not? Do we not want people really to know us and appreciate us for that? Instead of just appreciating us for what they feel like we ought to be. I think we're all prone to that a little bit.

Sometimes perhaps husbands sort of view their wives in terms of who they'd like for them to be instead of who they are. I think sometimes wives want to view their husbands in terms of their selfish feelings of who they'd like for their husbands to be instead of who they are.

I think sometimes parents were prone to want to impose on our children what we feel like they ought to be instead of who maybe God meant for them to be and who they are. Well, God says the same thing.

Don't come to me with your deep feelings about what you think about me. I want you to come learning about who I am and honor me, glorify me, exalt in me for who I say I am. Can I say something to you church?

That'll take a little work. That's going to take a little Bible study. That's going to take a little discipline. That's going to take getting the mental brain in gear. This is not a thoughtless, empty, baseless, unintellectual religion we have.

God wants us to use our intellect. I want to continue on to continue showing how important this is to God as He reveals it from His Word. Malachi chapter 2 verse 7. For the lips of the priest should preserve knowledge and men should seek instruction from His mouth.

For He is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. So what is the priest, the spiritual leader to do? Make sure you have the knowledge and the instruction of who God is, how He acts, what He's done. Romans chapter 10 verse 2.

For I bear witness that they have a zeal for God. And here's a people that has a zeal for God, but not in accordance to knowledge. You know what the great missing link in Christianity today is? Discernment.

Discernment. Everybody that pops up and uses the name of Jesus. Everybody that pops up and seems like big things are happening around them. Everybody that pops on television and seems to have a great following or disturbs people's feelings deeply would say that's God.

Where's the discernment? That says, now wait a minute, the Word of God says this, this, this, this and this about God. And what this guy's doing contradicts this, this and this. It's in the Word of God.

Therefore I discern according to knowledge this isn't of God. Where's the discernment in our age? It's greatly missing. They have a zeal. They're excited. They're passionate. But they don't have a true understanding in their hearts and minds about who God is and what He expects and what His work is like.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5, We are destroying speculations. False teachers would come into the church and they would bring their speculative ideas about what it's like to be a Christian and serve God.

And Paul says, man, when I find that stuff I destroy it. I don't mess with it. I expose it and I cut it to shreds. Because we don't want the speculations of men in our churches. We want the truth of God in our churches.

We destroy speculations and every lofty thing raised up against what? Against the knowledge, the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Can I exhort you again on this thing of being a disciplined disciple in your mind?

Constantly and listen to me again church because there's a great victory here. And I wish somebody had taught me this years ago. You must constantly discipline yourself to catch your thinking patterns, your conclusions and your viewpoints.

Some of you have thinking patterns, conclusions and viewpoints that you're sure are pleasing to God and they're not. I'm not talking about dirty thoughts and lustful thoughts. I'm talking about thoughts about the way God acts or thoughts about what conversion is.

Or thoughts about how a wife is supposed to conduct herself or how a husband is supposed to conduct. I mean all the thoughts of reality. We need to be disciplined to always take them to the Word and when the Word of God says we're off track to reject those thoughts.

Matter of fact, talk to yourself. Say, I reject that thinking in my mind right now. It's not the Word of God. It's not. Listen, we're people according to truth. And we ought to catch non-truth when it floats through our hearts and minds.

Why? Because we don't want speculations and lofty thoughts about God and service to God in our minds. We want truth about God and service to God in our minds. And you know what will happen? Are you listening to your pastor?

You walk in that discipline to humble yourself and keep kicking out untrue thinking and putting in biblical true thinking. You know what will happen? You'll start becoming very discerning. You'll start picking up on stuff that you see on television, watch or hear on the radio or maybe see in fellowships and you'll start discerning this is not pleasing to God.

This is not the true honoring of God. 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 6, Paul says to the church at Corinth,. But even if I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not so in knowledge. Now here's Paul, the preacher and from what we can glean from the New Testament, Paul's probably not a real dynamic orator.

He's probably not very impressive as a pulpiteer, that is in the art of speaking or proclaiming. But Paul says this, I do know God and I do know His truth and that's what's important. Let me ask you a question.

In the average conservative evangelical church today, if you had one guy who could get in the pulpit and really swoon everybody. And really thrill and stir and excite everybody, but really his content wasn't all that deep.

But then if you had another man and he didn't have great pulpit skills, but he knew God and knew God's truth. And if you listen carefully, you got a lot of great truth. Which one do you think the average conservative evangelical church would call in today's Christendom?

We are enamored with pulpiteerism sometimes and not enamored with truth proclaiming at times. Paul said, I may be unskilled in speech and my preaching skills, but I'm not so in knowledge. 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 3, Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us.

Now, once again, you know, I've been sharing with you about reading a lot of church history and reading a lot about our Baptist forefathers. And I keep running across all this catechizing of church members and all this personal instruction in God.

And they just sort of drilled Bible truth into their children's minds. And you know, there's a part of me that sort of said, resisted that. And then I read all these verses. I thought, man, our forefathers were on to something.

We need to move back toward. I'm not saying we need to be just like them, but the principle of grounding are establishing in our hearts and minds. The true doctrines of the Word of God is very important.

Now, listen, listen, listen, listen. Not very important, first and foremost, for our well-being, but very important that we might fulfill the ultimate purpose for which we exist. And that is that we might properly bring praise and glory to our God.

Because He wants to be honored and praised according to true knowledge. Not just deep sentiment. And far too often, I, we, the church today is too engrossed with deep sentiment, not deep truth. 2 Peter 3 .18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. So, Paul here, in our chief text again, Ephesians chapter 1, he begins to get into more the body of the doctrine he's going to lay out for us.

And he begins by saying, praise be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what he's going to do in these first 14 verses is give us knowledge, now listen to me, knowledge of the awesome, unbelievable, unfathomable truths of our salvation.

And he's going to lay all that out so that as we collect those truths in our minds, we can with knowledge and understanding praise Him more fully for all that He's done. That's going to be exciting. Now, I'm not saying just praise Him during the song service, by the way, that's one of the ways we praise Him is when we're together.

But I'm talking about seven days a week, 24 hours a day. When we are aware, we think of God praising Him for the great truths of His salvation toward us. So, He's going to give us some tremendous knowledge concerning salvation, concerning God's saving acts toward us.

And He's giving us those acts and He tells us repeatedly why. And He says it three times in the body of verses 1 through 14. That is to the end of the praise and glory and honor of God. Now, listen to me, listen to me, that's Paul's point.

And furthermore and better, that's God's point with Ephesians chapter 1. I want to be praised and I want you to praise me according to knowledge. So, why don't we just dedicate our hearts right here now and say in our hearts to God, God, I dedicate myself to have a greater knowledge of You and all that You've done to save me so that I can praise You more fully according to knowledge.

Not what I feel, not what stirs me, but what is true about what You've done and how You've done it. Now, I've entitled the message, a true theology produces a true doxology. No, I'm not trying to use big words or impress you in any way.

I want you to grasp what I'm saying though. A true theology leads to a true doxology. What does the word theology mean? It comes from two words, Theos God and Logos or Logia which means speech or word.

So, it's the word about God, speech about God and it's come to mean what we believe about God. So, if we believe the truth and have true knowledge about God, who He is, what He's done, then that's going to lead to the second thing which is doxology.

Now, you know what the doxology is, don't you? Maybe you grew up in a church like I did and we sang it every Sunday when I was a little boy at the end of the service. Well, that's not really what doxology is.

It's come to have that name on that little old praise God from whom all blessings flow. Remember that? Praise Him all creatures here below, praise Him above you heavenly hosts, praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Believe it or not, it's a great song. But that's not just what I mean by doxology. Doxology just comes from two words. One word is dox which just means praise and logia which means speech or the word.

It just means words of praise, praising God. So what am I saying? Here's what I'm saying. I'm saying that Paul is saying and God is saying get a true theology, a true knowledge of who God is and what He's doing.

That will compel you to explode if you will, overflow in a proper doxology or praise of God. And God wants us to be a praising people. But you know you can't praise Him if you don't know who He really is.

Now listen, you can't praise Him as you ought if you don't understand what He's truly done for you. What did the Old Testament prophet say? My people perish for lack of knowledge. So Paul's going to give us these verses, verses 1, actually verse 3 through 14 of this first chapter.

And it's going to be one flowing symphony. Are you hearing what I'm saying? It's going to be one flowing symphony of theology and doxology, theology, doxology, theology, doxology. Here's the way God is.

Here's what God has done. Hallelujah. Isn't He wonderful? But now listen to me. Satan is a counterfeiter. He's a liar. He's a twister. Here's what Satan wants you to do. Satan wants you to say don't think about doctrine.

Don't think about theology. That's dry. That's dull. That's boring. That's entertaining. That's not stirring. That's not blessing you. Don't think about teaching or instruction or reproofs or pronouncements of doctrinal truth.

Just sort of kick that out and just talk about Jesus and feel good about it. God says I reject that. I want you to have a true knowledge of who I am. Let that stir your emotions deeply and then praise me out of all of that.

So your intellect's involved. Your emotions are involved. The will's involved in extending the praise and the glory and the honor that God deserves. The two major points I want us to see from verse 3.

And the first one is this. Number one, we praise God the Father because we know His Son. Now that's right there in verse 3, but a casual reading would have easily missed it. Notice what he says. He doesn't say praise be to God the Father, does he?

No. He says praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, if he just left it at praise be to God the Father, we wouldn't have the knowledge to really know how to praise God. But it is through His Son, Jesus Christ, that we know much about the Father.

And as we learn much about our Father by knowing the Son, we can't help but praise the Father for sending His Son and for having a Son like that. So as Christians, we begin that exciting, thrilling experience of knowing God's Son and therefore knowing God the Father.

And when you know the Son and you increasingly know Him better, you can't help but praise. You see, God sent His Son that we might know more about Him. When a ruler wants to get better acquainted with another kingdom's ruler, he would often send an ambassador.

And if this person was real important and he really wanted that other ruler to know what he was like and what his feelings and desires were, he would send a high-ranking official. But if that ruler really wanted to communicate to that new ruler who he was and what his policies were, he might send his own son to represent him.

And that's what God the Father has done. He has sent His own Son. You see, you can often tell much about a father by observing his son. Did you know that? Often, folks can tell something about us by observing our children.

Now, some of us as parents at this point would like to plead for a little mercy and a little understanding. And may I suffice it to say, this isn't always true. Sometimes it seems parents do everything they know to do, they're not perfect, and a child just rebels.

And I've seen far, far more times, it seems like, when I've had, especially during my youth pastor days, when I had young people who grew up in horrible home situations that just honored God and lived for God.

So it's not always true, but it's often true. You know, I've noticed through the years, and it certainly happened at my house, a family will have their firstborn child. And it just seems like God's usually gracious with the first one.

They come home and it seems like more than likely the first one sleeps most nights. More than likely the first one is sort of compliant and a little bit calm and just overall pretty easy to deal with.

And you know what we do? We swell with pride and say, man, I am a wonderful Christian parent, look at this child. And then God gives you another child. And I mean, the second one, as soon as he or she pops out of the womb, they climb up the IV pole in the delivery room and swing from the tubing until you can grab the little critter and get him under control.

And then you think, oh dear Lord, what has happened? I failed completely as a parent. So there are exceptions to that rule. However, it is true that as a general sense, if you get to know a son, you can know something about the father.

Well, God sent his son because his son, listen, is a perfect expression of himself. A perfect expression. Jesus isn't just a good prophet. He isn't just a good teacher. Jesus was not some new moral leader who was showing man how to pull himself up by his own bootstraps and being a good example for mankind to follow.

He was infinitely more than that. As a matter of fact, C .S. Lewis is right. He couldn't just be a good teacher because he went around claiming to be God. And if you're just a good teacher and you claim to be God, you're crazy.

Lewis said he was either a lunatic going around saying he was God or he was just an out-and-out liar or he was the Lord that he said he was. He's the perfect expression of God. Colossians 1 .15 says, He is the image of the invisible God.

God put himself in human form when his son put on human flesh and dwelt among us. And he had the outshining of very God when you see the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you just said, let's give praise to the Father, you wouldn't have a good knowledge of who the Father is.

But when we know the Son, we are stirred in our understanding of how wonderful and glorious and praiseworthy the Father really is. You know, that's very important because all of us had imperfect fathers.

So when you just say, the Bible says, praise the Father, immediately we go to our Father. And some of us had maybe even evil fathers. But when he says, praise be to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, now that tells us something.

And that helps us to praise Him properly. To know Him, to praise Him, this is why we should praise Him. It's because He is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me give you three sub points here under this that ought to evoke praise in our hearts to God the Father.

The Father Sent His Son to Save

First of all, He sent His Son. John 3 .16,. For God so loved the world that He gave. He gave Him to us and He gave Him on the cross. His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And sometimes I think we need to take the simplest of truths, the incarnation, God becoming flesh, God putting on human clothing and dwelling among us is the most marvelous and wonderful thing one could ever imagine.

I call it a condescension beyond comprehension. How could God leave the glories of heaven and come to this sinful side? How could God leave the holiness of His heavenly King to come to this unholy earth?

How could God leave the sinlessness of heaven to come to this sinful earth? The perfections of heaven to come to the wretchedness and evils of this world. And when we think on that, we just want to say, praise the Father that would do that for us.

Christ's Incarnation and Incomparable Character

He sent His Son. Secondly, I'd like to say in looking at this, we saw His Son and in every way He is incomparable. We saw His Son. Now you and I didn't actually physically see Him, but our forefathers in the faith, the apostles and many others saw Him literally, actually and physically.

And as they saw Him, they saw Him as incomparable. None other was like Jesus in any way. First John read the 1 -1. John was talking about the actual fact that they literally physically knew Christ. He said it this way, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, we saw Him.

What we looked at and we touched with our hands concerning the Word of Life. We heard Him. We saw Him. We looked at Him. We touched Him. His Son has come to us. And He's marvelous beyond compare. I just listed four words here about Jesus as He was observed on this earth.

You could probably list a hundred or any number of words to describe the wonder and the glory of the Son of God. But the first one I list is sinless. That's a marvelous thing by itself, sinless. On one occasion in John 8 -46, Jesus was facing His critics and He said, Now which one of you convicts me of sin?

Can any one of you, He says, actually prove that I've sinned in any way? And you know what? They were silent before Him. He was sinless. God sent His sinless Son. Secondly, I'd like to mention the word compassionate.

He's compassionate. He showed compassion to all. And He particularly showed compassion to the most needy of all. That tells us something about Him. He is one who is compassionate and caring and loving.

Remember the lepers that no one would have anything to do with. And that day, if you're a leper and you walk down the street, you're required by law to cry out, unclean, unclean! And people would literally walk around you and you'd have to go to the other side of the street because no one wanted to be around you.

But Jesus welcomed the lepers and He healed them. Remember that poor woman with the issue of blood. I think it was 12 years she had been so sick. And in desperation, she fought through the crowd and touched the tassel of His garment, the text says.

And instantly she was healed. She was scared to death when Jesus realized that power went out from Him. And He comforted her and consoled her and showed love and compassion to her. The Lord Jesus is compassionate.

Remember old blind Bartimaeus. In that day, there were a lot of eye ailments. Historians tell us a significant percentage of the population was blind. And these were literally the outcasts of society.

Bartimaeus sits by the side of the road and probably the only thing he has in his whole possession is the outer cloak that's over him. And as Jesus walks by, he cries out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus. Somebody, everyone else would have ignored and just walked around. When we see the Son, we know something of the Father. And we praise Him for that. A third word that I picked out is the word true.

He's true through and through. There's no feigned obedience in Him. No hypocrisy in Him. He was the genuine deal. Matter of fact, as the Pharisees, the religious leaders came up to Jesus, He would quickly and firmly, and I might add not pulling any punches, rebuke and correct them.

He told the Pharisees they were hypocrites. He said, you're whitewashed tombs. Now, that may not mean a lot to an Alabamian, but to a Jew, death was unclean and you didn't have anything to do with anything associated with death.

That was a defiling thing. He not only said, you're associated with death. He said, you are death. You're whitewashed tombs. He said, you're a bunch of snakes. You're a bunch of vipers. He said, you're blind leading the blind.

He was no respecter of persons. He played up to no one. He was not a phony. He was true. Well, not only that, I picked out another word, lowly. He was lowly and He did have meekness. He had that beautiful balance that we strive for.

Jesus was lowly and in the sense that He would welcome those that others would reject. Remember Him eating with publicans and sinners and the Jews would try to find some sort of error. They're always twisting and slandering His name, trying to find some way to bring His image down in the eyes of the people, but He didn't care.

He would fellowship with the lowly. No respecter of persons. Everybody was equal before Jesus Christ. Men like Lazarus or rather Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a short guy, wasn't he, that climbed up the tree?

Good, got my story right. Zacchaeus, probably a wealthy and influential man. I mean, if you used a tax schedule in that day, you had a lot of money. He welcomed the up and up, but He also welcomed the lowest of the low.

We've already talked about that as we talked about His compassion. What is my point to you? Listen to me. God, let us see His Son. Let us hear His Son. And in the case of our forefathers in the faith, they touched Him.

And they handled Him, John says. And Paul, as he writes to the church at Ephesus says, we praise God the Father because we know something of Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. But that's not all. Secondly, not only did he send His Son, not only did we see His Son, and He is in every respect incomparable.