Saints Alive — Warren Wiersbe

We turn to Ephesians chapter 1, and I shall read the first 14 verses. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, 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 sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, through which he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, in which he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted after ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

The Biblical Meaning of Sainthood

And so the plan of salvation reaches from eternity past to eternity future, and we are a part of that plan and vitality to the Christian life. That one simple word will not describe what a Christian is.

Now we use the word Christian most of all the words, and yet interestingly enough it's found only three times in the entire New Testament. I was reading Acts chapter 9 recently and was impressed with how many different names for Christians are found in that chapter.

We are called disciples, and we are called brethren, and we are called those that call upon his name, we're called those who follow the way, and we're also called saints. At least three times in that chapter God speaks of us as saints, and that's what Paul does in Ephesians chapter 1 verses 1 and 2.

He addresses this letter to the saints who are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Now I suppose some of you are a little bit shocked to find out that believers, Christians, are called saints.

If you'll check the dictionary or the encyclopedia, you'll find that most of the people out in the world don't have the clue, don't have a clue as to what it means to be a saint. They tell us that a saint is a person who has isolated himself from the rest of humanity.

He's gone off somewhere to develop sanctity, to get closer to God, and yet Paul was writing to saints who were right in the big city of Ephesus, a city with, I suppose, some 300 ,000 people in it. They were not sitting on top of a pillar, they were not off in some cave, they were in a busy, prosperous, popular city, and yet they were saints.

There are those who tell us that saints are manufactured, that if you have been living a pure life, and if you can point to the fact that you have performed some miracles, then we'll make a saint out of you.

But we have to wait until you've been dead at least 50 years to do this. Now I respect people who have this conviction, but you don't find it in the Bible. In my ministry I have to be limited to what we have in the Word of God.

Isaiah says, to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it's because there's no light in them. You see, these people that Paul was writing to were not outperforming miracles, they had experienced a miracle.

And they weren't dead people, they were living people. He's writing to living saints. He did not write this letter and send it to the dead letter office, he sent this to people who were alive and could read it.

Now there was a time when they were dead. They were dead in trespasses and sins. But they had experienced something that had made saints out of them. And so the question before the house this morning is simply this, what is a saint?

They say, what difference does it make? Well, it makes all the difference in the world. Here is Paul writing a letter. Now I have no right to read anybody else's mail. I have no right at all to apply to myself that which doesn't apply to me.

And I like this letter. I like Paul's letter to the Ephesians. We're going to be spending weeks and weeks and weeks in Ephesians. In chapters 1, 2, and 3, he spells out doctrine, basic doctrine. And he points out my wonderful riches in Christ.

And in chapters 4, 5, and 6, we have duty. And he spells out our responsibilities in Christ. Ruth Paxton says in chapters 1, 2, and 3, we have the believer's wealth. In chapters 4, 5, and 6, we have the believer's walk.

And she is right. Now I want to know, does this wealth belong to me? Do I have any right to take Ephesians as a spiritual bank book and go up to the throne of grace and say, God, this is what you said.

I want that for my life. I can't do it unless I know I'm a saint. Dr. Harry Ironside, who was pastor here for 18 years, had a sweet, wonderful way about getting next to people. Now as you folks know who have been here for many years, Dr. Ironside traveled widely in conference ministry.

And he'd often leave this church on a Sunday night and go down to the LaSalle Street station and hop a train and go off someplace. I was reading the other day that interesting little story about how he spent four days on a train going across to California and fell into conversation with a group of women who belonged to a religious order.

And they had a good time discussing the Bible. And finally, Dr. Ironside looked at them and said, Ladies, have you ever seen a saint? Oh, they said, no, we never have. He said, would you like to see one?

They said, well, yes, we certainly would. He said, look, you are looking at Saint Harry. And he was right. Because according to the word of God, saints are living people. Until God calls them home to heaven and then they really enter into life.

Life eternal and everlasting in the presence of the Lord. You see, this word saint simply means one who is different because he's been set apart. That's all it means. It doesn't mean someone who's striving and trying to become holy by being religious.

The word saint means one who is different because he has been set apart. He doesn't set himself apart to find God. He is set apart because God has found him. Now, in these first two verses of Ephesians chapter one, Paul gives us the characteristics of a saint.

Trusting in God's Son

There are four of them. I hope they are true of us today. Number one, a saint is a person who is different because he has trusted in God's Son. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints who are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.

Now, he's not writing to two groups of people, saints and faithful. You would expect saints to be faithful. This word faithful means believers. It's translated that way several times in our New Testament.

Paul's not writing to two groups of people. Paul is writing to one group and he's saying, I am writing to the saints who are at Ephesus even to the believers in Christ Jesus. It's the same word that Jesus used when he said to Thomas, be not faithless but believing.

Same word. Same word that Lydia used when she said to Paul, if you have judged me to be faithful, come into my house. If you have judged me to be a believer, come into my house. A saint is someone who has trusted in God's Son.

Now, I meet many people who say, well, pastor, I have faith. Well, faith in what? Well, I have faith. I have faith in goodness. I have faith that somewhere up there somebody loves me. This is not what these saints had.

Here was a specific faith in a specific person. My dear friend, you are not saved by faith in anything. We are saved by faith in, and notice the phrase he uses here, the Lord Jesus Christ, verse 2. Not just Jesus.

I hear a great deal being said these days about Jesus. Not just Jesus Christ. Not just Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Paul had founded this church in Ephesus, and he had preached to them the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ is his official title. It means Messiah, the Anointed One. Christ is his prophetic name. Throughout the Old Testament, they were looking for a king and a prophet and a priest, and every king failed.

And the prophets even were sinners. And the priests were sinners. But there came one who was the Christ, the Anointed One. And he fulfilled all these Old Testament pictures. And that person is our Lord Jesus Christ.

So when you trust him, you're trusting the Anointed One, the Messiah. Now, he's not just Christ. He's Jesus Christ. The name Jesus is his name as Savior. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.

Jesus is the New Testament word for Joshua. Joshua means Jehovah is salvation. And so we have the Anointed Savior. But he is not just simply Jesus Christ, the Anointed Savior. He is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that word Lord means he is God. You see, it doesn't say, Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from Isaiah the prophet. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Apostle Peter.

Grace be unto you and peace from our Father and from Jeremiah. No, it says our Lord Jesus Christ. Because he is God. And so when you put your faith in him, you are putting your faith in the Messiah, the Savior.

God, who is the only Savior of the world. Now, when the Apostle Paul was Saul of Tarsus, he believed in a Messiah. No question about that. Every Jew who is taught in the Old Testament Scriptures believes in a Messiah.

But Saul of Tarsus didn't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. And then one day on that Damascus road, Saul of Tarsus saw Jesus of Nazareth. And then a word came to his lips which he would never have used before.

Lord. And so when he put it all together, he had the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Paul dared to call himself a saint. Nine times in Ephesians you find Paul using the word saints. One of his favorite words for believers.

The saints. His inheritance in the saints. Walk in a life that becometh the saints. Praying for all the saints. Over in chapter 3, Paul says, Unto me, who am the least of all the saints. Paul, you're really proud there.

That's a little bit of arrogance to call yourself a saint. I mean, you're a murderer. You stood there and held the clothes while they murdered Stephen. Saul of Tarsus, you dare to call yourself a saint?

Yes, I do. On what basis? I have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ. So a saint is a person who is different because he has trusted God's Son. Now, when you trust God's Son, you change addresses. You say, marvelous, I'd like to move out of my neighborhood.

You won't physically, but you will spiritually. Two little prepositions in verse 1 are so interesting. These saints were at Ephesus in Christ Jesus. Did you get that? Every believer in Jesus Christ has two addresses.

A physical address. A geographical address. At Chicago. Well, we'll met at Los Angeles. But a spiritual address. In Christ Jesus. The Apostle Paul uses this little phrase, in Christ, 164 times in his letters.

It's an important phrase. It means this. When you were born, you were born in Adam. That made you a sinner. When you were born again through faith in Christ, you were taken out of that old relationship and put into a new relationship in Christ.

These saints were at Ephesus physically, but in Christ spiritually. Someone says, I'd like to be a Christian, but you know where I live, it's pretty rough. Ephesus was pretty rough. Pornography was rampant.

In fact, pornography was religious. The Temple of Diana was one of the seven wonders of the world. And people flocked from all over the world to see the Temple of Diana. It was filled with religious prostitution.

It was an art gallery. It was a bank. And the city of Ephesus had money and pleasure and religion. And yet there were saints in that city. There were people who trusted Christ. And they didn't say, oh, you can't be a saint in Ephesus.

Experiencing God's Grace

If you can be a saint in Ephesus, you can be a saint in Chicago. A saint is one who is different because he has trusted God's Son. Secondly, he is different because he has experienced God's grace. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, Paul is not the one who bestows grace. Grace and peace are great words. The Old Testament Jew, when he met a friend, said shalom, peace. The New Testament Greek, when he met a friend, said grace.

And today in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female. We're all one in Christ. And so he says of these saints, they are those who are recipients of grace and peace.

And so our second characteristic of a saint is he is one who has experienced the grace of God. Now, Ephesians is the book of God's grace. Twelve times in these six chapters, Paul talks about grace, grace, grace.

Mr. Moody had an interesting experience one time. Mr. Moody said there are three books everybody should own. Number one, a good study Bible. Number two, Cruden's Concordance. And number three, a topical textbook.

And one week, Mr. Moody was doing a lot of studying, preparing sermons, and he was using his Cruden's Concordance, studying grace. And he got so filled with what he was learning, he got up from his table and went out the door and stopped the first person he met on the street and said, what do you know about grace?

And the surprised man said, grace who? And D .L. Moody said, the grace of God. I wonder if you've ever gotten excited about the grace of God. Now, Ephesus was a wealthy city, but it wasn't wealthy enough to buy grace.

Grace is given. You know what grace is? Grace is God's favor to the undeserving. That's what it is. Someone has made an acrostic out of grace, G-R-A-C-E, God's riches available at Christ's expense.

Grace. Grace is God's favor to the undeserving without expecting anything in return. Now, sometimes you do favor for undeserving people hoping to get something back. Grace means God's favor to the undeserving with no expectation of return.

One day God spoke to a man in Ur of the Chaldees, an idolater, and said, Abraham, I want you to follow me. And Abraham turned his back on idol worship and became the founder of the Hebrew nation. That's grace.

One day Jesus looked up a tree and saw a little man on a branch. And that little man was a tax collector, and he had a pretty bad record as a financial wizard. And Jesus said, Zacchaeus, come down. I'm going to go to your house today.

Salvation has come to your house. That's grace. One day they dragged a woman before Jesus and said, we've taken her in the very act of adultery. Moses said we should stone her. What do you say? And Jesus said to that woman, ultimately when her accusers left, neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.

That's grace. They hung Jesus on a cross, and while he's hanging there dying for the sins of the world, he turns and sees a thief. And that thief says to him, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus says, today you'll be with me in paradise. That's grace. One day a Jewish rabbi named Saul of Tarsus was storming down the road, and he was out to get every believer he could get, and Jesus appeared to him and translated him out of darkness into light and saved him.

That's grace. Now my friend, have you experienced the grace of God? He tells us over in chapter 2 how they experienced this grace. I can hardly wait until we get to chapter 2. And you hath he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, but God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, for by grace are ye saved, hath quickened us together with Christ, and raised us together with him into the heavenlies.

That's grace. Grace means God does for us what we can't do for ourselves. Grace means God gives us what we can't earn by ourselves. Grace means God supplies to us what we never deserved and never could merit, and once we get it we don't deserve it.

That's grace. It's no wonder that John Newton told us to sing, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, and what a wretch he was. A saint is a person who has trusted God's Son and experienced God's grace.

We're going to see as we go through Ephesians how rich we are because of God's grace, but let me say this. Do you know that when you've experienced the grace of God, you have everything you'll ever need?

That's amazing. When I was born into this world, thank God, I was born with everything I needed to be able to grow up and be a normal human being. When you're born into God's family by his grace, he grants to you through his riches of his grace all that you will need until he comes and takes you home.

Receiving God's Peace

It's a marvelous thing. A saint is one who has trusted God's Son and experienced God's grace. Now, there's a third characteristic of a saint. He has received God's peace. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and to the believers in Christ Jesus, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, when you believe in God's Son and receive God's grace, you also receive God's peace. There's so much fighting in this world. Oh, my. Here in the city of Chicago, we turn the radio on to get the latest news about what needs to be put back together again.

And we get the international news about nation fighting against nation. But let's not talk about nation against nation or class against class or race against race. Let's just talk about the three basic wars that you fight.

Every human being has three basic wars. He's at war with himself and he's at war with other people and he's at war with God. That's what James tells us. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not even hence from your desires that war in your members?

He says because you are at war with yourself, you're at war with each other. And because we're at war with ourselves and each other, it's an evidence that we're at war with God. And yet Jesus Christ comes to give us peace.

It's a beautiful thing over here in chapter 2. I'm going to jump ahead and let you read it. I can hardly wait until we get there. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 14. Speaking about our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our peace.

Peace is not a document, it's a person. Peace is not a philosophy, it's a person. Peace is not a religion. Peace is a person. He is peace. That means that when you're in Him, you're in peace. And you are in Him when you've trusted Him.

And so He is our peace. At the end of verse 15 it tells us that Jesus Christ is making peace. You know how He's doing that? He's taking people and saving them. And He's building His church where there are no distinctions human.

We're all one in Christ. And so He is our peace and He made peace through the blood of His cross. And in verse 17 He came and preached peace. And He's still doing this. How's He doing it? Through you and me.

Over in chapter 6 Paul tells us, Now put on your feet the gospel of peace. The preparation of the gospel of peace. The shoes that we wear as Christians are the shoes of peace. Not war shoes. And so Jesus Christ is our peace.

And He purchased our peace. And He's making peace. And then He's sharing peace through you and me. And I speak to some people just now who don't have any peace. You're trying peace by running away. You're trying peace by alcohol or narcotics.

You're trying to get peace through escape. That's not going to work. A saint is one who is different because he has received God's peace. My friend, when you have peace in your heart between you and God, you're not afraid of anybody else.

When there's peace between me and heaven, I'm not afraid of earth. You're not a threat to me when God has given me peace. And the reason we have so much fighting these days is because of selfishness and greed and defensiveness and fear.

A psychologist I was reading about recently said that fear, that rebellion, rebellion is fear turned inside out. And many people who are fighting on the outside are fearful on the inside. But when you have God's peace, when you're one of His saints, you don't worry about that.

And so a saint is one who is different because he has trusted God's Son, he has experienced God's grace, he has received God's peace. It's a marvelous thing to use your energy all day long in peace and not in war.

It's a wonderful thing at the end of the day to go to bed and look up and look at God's face and say, Thank you, God. There were problems today and difficulties today, but thank you that I was able to use my life in peace and not in war.

Entering God's Family

There's a fourth characteristic of every saint of God. A saint is a person who is different because he has trusted God's Son, he's experienced God's grace, he has received God's peace, and he has entered God's family.

Our Father, grace be unto you and peace from God, Father. This last week I read a book on success. You say, I'm so glad you did, Pastor, you could use some. That's true. I read a book on success. After I read it, I gave it to Dr. Filk and I said, I want you to read this and see what you think of it.

And we both came to the same conclusion. Now, God is mentioned in this book. The Creator, not the Father. Jesus is mentioned in this book, the Teacher, not the Savior. You see, when I look up to heaven, I don't talk to a creator.

He is my creator. He made me. I don't talk to a judge. He cannot judge me. Oh, you say, that's awfully arrogant. No, no, it's scriptural. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.

If God sends judgment upon me, he's judging his own Son, because I'm in him. You see, I have received peace from God the Father. He's not going to declare war after giving me peace. A Christian is one, a saint is one who has entered God's family.

It's not God the creator, God the legislator, God the great beyond, God the judge. I was reading one of Emily Dickinson's letters the other day. She's that strange poetess from a century ago. And she wrote this to a friend.

I am not very religious, but my family is. Every morning they pray to an eclipse that they call their father. Now, when I pray to my father, he's not an eclipse. He's not some spiritual enigma, some nebulous thing way out there.

He's my father. And a saint is one who has entered God's family, and he really can say, Father! Now, here's an interesting thing. You trace this word saint through the New Testament, and you'll discover only once is it ever used in the singular.

It's always plural. The saints in Rome, called to be saints. The saints here, the saints there. Only once does he use the singular. And then he puts every in front of it. Every saint. The saints are together.

They belong to a family. It's never a saint, an isolated saint off someplace. It's always these saints. We belong to a family. The particular family he was writing to was in Ephesus. There was a church family in Ephesus.

There was a group of saints in Ephesus. They were known as the Church in Ephesus. And a saint is one who has entered God's family. Now, that is such a devastating truth that I think we take it for granted and miss the explosiveness of it.

For me to say I'm in God's family and God is my Father means for me to say I have God's nature. My children are in my family, and unfortunately, they have my nature. If I'm in God's family, I have God's nature.

That means that the very divine nature of God is within me. He has graciously shared with me His life. When you get to chapter 2 of Ephesians, he describes what we were like before we were saved. Dead, living for the world, living for the flesh, living for the devil.

But now, he says, through God's grace, you have been saved and you belong to the family of God. Because we belong to the family of God, God the saint has a blessed fellowship with other Christians. I know you unsaved people think we saints are crazy.

We're not crazy. We're different. We're not odd. We're different. Because we are saints, we stand out from the run-of-the-mill kind of person in the world today. You see, we have trusted God's Son.

What are you trusting? We have experienced God's grace. What are you experiencing? We have received God's peace. What have you received? We have entered God's family. Whose family are you in? I was reading a devotional book the other day, obviously written by someone who didn't know his Bible.

And he said this, quote, A saint is a sinner that keeps on trying, unquote. And I shouted out loud, there was nobody there to hear me, and said, No! A saint is a sinner that keeps on trying. That's heresy.

That's blasphemy. A saint is a sinner who has trusted Jesus Christ and no longer lives like a sinner because he has experienced God's grace and received God's peace and entered God's family. And Paul writes in this book and says, I want you to live the kind of a life that becometh saints.

If you wait until after you're dead to become a saint, you'll never be one. It's appointed unto men once to die, and after this, the judgment. If you wait until you live a perfect life to become a saint, you'll never be one because there's none righteous, no, not one.

If you wait until you perform a miracle to become a saint, you'll never be one. You have to experience a miracle. I invite you today to become a saint. A set-apart one. Let God pick you out of this world spiritually and put you into Jesus Christ where you have a living, lasting union with Him.

You're in Christ. If you say, I'm not one of God's saints, you can be one of God's saints by trusting Christ. We're grateful that we don't really belong to this world system. We're thankful that we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

We have experienced the grace of God. We're thankful, Father, that you have deigned to call us set-apart ones. We're special. We're different. We're saints. Our prayer, Lord, is that we might live as those who have been set-apart and purchased at such a tremendous price.

As we go through this beautiful letter to the Ephesians, Father, help us to realize how rich we are because we are your saints. May there be those here who will trust the Savior. We ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.