Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ephesians chapter one.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We're gonna go through a series of messages called Blessed Strangers.
The ED is strong, So it's not blessed strangers, it's
blessed strangers. The ED is strong because I want to
give you the ed, the education on why you're blessed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And what what's the term strangers for it?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Because we are strange to this world, Christians, you are
strange to this world. The more you grow in Christ,
the stranger you should feel to the world around you.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Does that make sense? More growth in Christ, more.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Uncomfortability on this earth because we are not of this world.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And so every day for Brandon and Guatemalo's a war.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Hey, every day for you is a war. Just some
of you not woken up to it yet. And you
got to remember that when this message ends and you
go back outside these doors or all over locations, you
are entering into a battlefield. And so as we go
through Ephesians, we're gonna go in this series through Ephesians
one through three. Now, if you got your paper bible open,
(01:14):
just flip through the Book of Ephesians real quick. Can
anybody tell me shout it out if you know it
at all? Our locations. How many chapters are in Ephesians, Yeah, six,
little pastor how can we're stopping at chapter three? Here's
why because usually when we teach Ephesians and church, we
go to the last part of Aphesians and we ignore
the first part of Ephesians. When we want to talk
(01:37):
about marriage, we go to Aphesian chapter five, and then
we tell husbands, love your wives, and wives submit to
your husbands. Every woman's favorite Bible verse, I know, Ephesians.
And then when we talk about parenting, you know, children
obey your parents and father's discipline and instruct your children
in Ephesian chapter six. And then when we talk about
(01:58):
how to think, we can go to Fhesian chapter four.
And then and when we want to talk about spiritual warfare,
which we just talked about warfare, well, that's the Feesian
chapter six, verse twelve, that we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against the principality of spiritual forces of
wickedness in the heavenly places. And so here's what we
typically do with the Book of Ephesians. We go to
the end of the book for what we should do
(02:19):
and ignore the first part of the book, which tells
us how we are able in Christ Jesus to do it.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I like to say that the first part of the book,
and I want you to write this down, tells us
who you are. The second part of the book tells
you what to do, So write it down. Ephesians four
to six, which is what we're not going to cover
in this series.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Is what we do. But Ephesians one to three is
who we are. Do you know who you are?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Dear Christian child of God, Father of Jesus, blood bought
Saint of the Living most High?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I do you know who you are? Because if you
don't know who you are, how you supposed to do
what God has called you to do?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And I want to tell you that what God has
done for you and who God has made you is
the impetus behind being able and empowered to do what
God wants you to do, period full stop.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Now, I want to illustrate this because sometimes we don't
get it.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
But has anybody in here or in our all over locations,
has anybody ever flown anywhere?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Been on a plane? Yes?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Okay, how many know a plane has wings and a
plane has wheels, And I fly back and forth to
Florida a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And so I get on a lot of planes, and
I go back and forth. And I had this thought
as I was getting on the plane recently, and I
looked at the planes. It's got wheels, it's got wings.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Technically you could drive the plane to Massachusetts. I mean
technically you could, right, because it's got wheels.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And if you were to be.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Someone from the sixteen hundreds, like if we actually did
create the DeLorean and got ourselves the flex capacitor and
went back in time and got Louis the sixteenth and
brought him to America in twenty twenty one, and said, listen,
Louis sit in this plane. What do you think he
might be tempted to think, Well, this is a modern chariot,
and let me just drive this thing from Florida.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And to massa jusets, how many know you. It take
a long time, and it caused a lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
The plane would get destroyed, houses would get destroyed, and
the trip would be generally uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
But you got to know what those wings are for.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
When you know what the plane has to empower the
plane to be what it's supposed to be, you won't
treat the plane like a car.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
What am I saying this for?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Because some of you Christians don't realize that God wants
you to rise up with wings and not roll through
life with wheels. Too many Christians are rolling when they
should be flying. Too many Christians are struggling when they
should be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ, who love them.
(05:17):
Too many Christians are looking for the love of this
world when they need to deepen themselves in the love
of the Father, who is not of this world. Too
many Christians are expecting this world to approve of them
when they need to remember that God Almighty already gives
him their approval, his approval and nothing in this world
can satisfy you outside the love.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I want this series to give you wings so that
you stop rolling through life, because if you roll through life,
you're going to destroy.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Others or you destroy yourself.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
But if you learn how to fly, my Bible tells
me they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run,
not grow weary, they shall walk and not fain. Are
there some weary Christians in this place today? Are there
some tired, worn out believers who need to mount up
(06:12):
with wings? Ephesians chapter one through three is the fuel
to your flight. Stand with me as we read chapter
one to verse fourteen Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus
by the will of God, and that line the will
of God is very important.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
For the rest of these three chapters.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Everything about us is because of the will of God.
I am who I am by the will of God.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I am not self made. He made me. Amen some
mondy okay.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful
in Christ, Jesus, Grace to you and peace from God
the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed Somebody say
blessed here it is blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus in the heavenly places,
(07:17):
even as He chose us in Him before the foundations
of the world, that we should be wholly in blameless
before Him in love. He predestined us for adoption as
sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
to the praise of his glorious Christ, which he has
blessed us in the beloved. In Him, we have redemption
(07:37):
through His blood, the forgiveness of all of our trespasses,
according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished
upon us in all wisdom and in sight, making known
to us the mystery of His will, according to his purpose,
which he set forth in Christ as a plan for
the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him,
things in heaven and things on earth.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
In Him, we have obtained an inheritance.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who
works all things according to the council of his will,
so that we who were first to hope in Christ,
might be to.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
The praise of His glory. And you in Him. You also,
when you heard the.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and believed
in Him, were sealed.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Somebody say sealed.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is
the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire it and
take possession of it to the praise of His glory.
That's as far as we're going to get. This is
the reading of God's word. Let's pray, Father, I ask
(08:49):
this moment is governed by the Holy Spirit, that our
hearts are open, that our ears are open, and we
receive truth transforms us.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Help us to see Jesus.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Him and Him only and his money name me. Praying
everybody said, Amen, God, bless you have a seat. So
Ephesians is a letter. It's a letter to the first
century church in ephesis by the apostle Paul.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And the first two verses there.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Are the introduction, introduction, and a salutation, just like you.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Would write a letter today. But from verse three. If
you look at your Bible.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
From verse three through all the way to verse fourteen,
that entire chap, that entire section in the original language
is one long sentence, one long Now.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I was a public school.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Educated and I was good at math.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I was terrible at reading in English.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And now God has me writing and reading for a living.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
That's Scott's humor right there. But anyway, I struggled with writing,
and I used to get my papers back with the
big red letters on the entire page are o s
meaning what yes, run on sentence. I've got some friends
(10:09):
in the audience who had that experience as well. In
other words, you gotta put a period. At some point
you gotta stop the thought and begin another one. But
when Paul the Apostles starts talking about who we are
in Christ, he can't stop. He just runs on and
on and on, and he wants us to understand. And
I think what he does is he starts out saying,
(10:30):
let me tell these people who they are. Let me
tell Christians what Christians really are. Christians are not second
class citizens. Christians are not losers. Christians are not outcasts.
Christians are beloved, They're chosen, They're predestined, they belong to God,
they are forgiven, they are redeemed, they are valuable to
God Almighty. And I think he just gets caught up
(10:52):
in the moment of telling us who we are and
he can't stop, and he just gives glory to God.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
For what God has made us to be. And so
the first.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Word in Fesis chapter one, verse three is blessed. Look
at it, blessed be the God. This is worship. I
want Paul saying, I'm worshiping God for what God.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Has made you and I to be in Christ.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Jesus, how many know in this house that being saved
is good. Being God's people is good knowing that my
sins are forgiven is a blessing. Knowing that I'm out
of my way to heaven is a blessing that I
know Jesus is with me. I've got something to worship.
(11:42):
God's for in my life. And if you know who
you are in Christ, it should turn into worship of
the God who made you who you are. That's why
Christians worship. Christians do not worship because they're trying to
earn goodies from God. I hope you didn't come to
church today because you made a plan with God on
(12:02):
Wednesday that you really want something from his hand on Monday,
so you came to his house on Sunday to wrangle
it out of his hand.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
That's not gonna work. That's an economic relationship. God's not
into economic relationships. He's into love relationships, and he wants
to love you as a father who loves his children unconditionally.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Blessed.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
He's worshiping, and so in the Old Testament, the Jews
and the people of Israel would worship God for saving.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Them out of Egypt.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
If you read the Psalms, the worship hymnal of the Bible,
you'll see time and time again, they talk about the
Red Sea.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
They worship God in the psalms.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
The red Sea, the red sea, he divided, the sea,
he provided man in the wilderness. And what they are
doing is they are singing about what God has done
for them. If you know what God has done for you,
it should produce worship out of you. One of the
things that I know is problematic in the church today
is a lack of worship, and maybe the life lack
(13:00):
of worship is because we have a lack of understanding
of what God has done, so that when we show
up at church on Sunday, we don't show up.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Waiting for the right song to start.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
We don't show up waiting for the Holy Ghost goosebumps
to start. We don't show up and judge the performance
of the people on stage as if as if we
went to a U two concert. Well, I don't really
like that song. Well that's not really my style.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I mean, she didn't sing that right, I'm not really
into it. No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
A Christian doesn't worship because they like the song. A
Christian worship because they love the Savior, Blessed be the
God and Father of a Lord, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And I want to ask you, are you blessed? He says,
he's blessed us Are you blessed? Why? Why are you blessed?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Some of you will say, well, I'm blessed because I'm healthy,
I was born in America, or I live in America,
or was born whatever, I got parents, I got a family,
I got a bed.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Those are material, circumstantial blessings.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And the word here in the Greek is ugleo, which
we get the word eulogy from.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You la gayo, which we get the word eulogy from.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
When you speak of eulogy, you are trying to bring
that person you know to life. You're trying to you're
trying to show the goodness of that person.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
You ever go to a funeral and you knew.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
That the guy in the box was not nearly as
good as the guy talking about him on the stage, right,
the guy's like over selling this guy, Like I knew
that dude he was not that nice, right, And so
eulogy is always trying to talk, you know, well over
a person. Well, it comes from the word you let
gayo in Greek, which means God has you look gayoed
(14:42):
you he's major better than you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
because you're not that great. Yeah, turn it in air
and say you're not that great.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, don't do that. Husband's just let her do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
But anyway, God in Christ Jesus has you loo I
owed you, he has He has given you a blessing.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Why are you blessed?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Here's why Verse four Verse four of Ephesians one. Even
as he chose us, somebody say, I'm chosen. If you're
in Christ Jesus, if you've repented of your sins, if
you've given your life to Jesus Christ, you are chosen.
And then look at the next line. Can you just
read it with me? Chose us in him? Say these
(15:24):
words everybody at all of our locations, before the foundation
of the world, When did you get saved? I got
saved nineteen ninety one. Well, I got saved in nineteen
seventy eight. Who I got saved in twenty fifteen?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
I got.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
That's when you woke up. That's when you got holy ghost,
woke to what God already did. Listen before the foundation
of the world. See, God chose you before you showed up. Now,
(16:02):
there's a lot of theologians that like to interpret that
verse and say, well, that's because God saw what you
were gonna do. He saw you, he saw what you're
gonna do, and then he decided to choose you. That
makes it based on what you do. That makes it
based on works. And it is not of works. Ephes
in chapter two eight is as clear as day. It
(16:23):
is not of works, so that no one can boast.
It is by grace you are saved. And I'm trying to.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Tell you today that God in heaven saw you before
the foundation of the world, before he said let there
be light, you were on his mind.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
He chose you in him before the foundation of the world.
This is the blessing of being chosen. Title of the message.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
So three realities from the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit working together to make us who we are.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Point number one.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
From the Father, we have a destiny rooted in eternity past.
From the Father, we have a destiny rooted in eternity past.
Do you ever feel like there's something working behind the
scenes of your life.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Newsflash, there is.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
There's someone who saw you from the foundations of the earth,
and he circumvented the situations. He used the negative institutions,
he used the trouble, he used the trials.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
He used the bad, he used.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The good, and he weaved it like a master weaver.
He weaved it all together to create for you a
destiny that has been formed for you from before the
foundation of the earth, to make you a new creation.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
In his son, Jesus Christ. What I'm trying to tell
you is, you're not a nobody. You're not a cosmic accident.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You did not arrive here because apes learned how to
stand fully upright.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
You are here today.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
You are where you are today and all of our
locations if you are in Christ Jesus, because God the
Father saw you and chose you and made you who
you are. He chose you verse four again from the
foundations of the earth, that we should be holy. We'll
get to that in a moment. He predestined us for adoption.
I think about Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs changed the world, right, Yeah,
(18:30):
if you have one of theses because of Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Even if you've.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Got a Samsung, which is the Devil's version of this book,
this thing, you understand that the people of Samsung, there's
the legend. People of Samsung were watching Steve Jobs talk
about the reveal of this phone and all the executives
were like, how on earth did he do that? And
so they just copied it and stole it and made
a subpar phone. Anyway, changed the world. But do you
(18:56):
know that he was adopted and when he was when
he's a little boy, she made fun of him. She said,
you're adopted because your parents didn't want you. And he
burst out into tears and you ran home to his
adoptive parents and he said, she told me that my
parents did a woman and they're like west Roxy.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
She told me that my parents that wove.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
It, and these parents with wisdom said Steve, we wanted you,
we chose you. And he said that from that moment forward,
his life had a propulsion to destiny. Knowing that you
are chosen changes everything. Christian, do you know that you
(19:40):
are chosen by the Father. That should change how you
see yourself. That should empower how you relate to everybody around.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
You, because even if they.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Reject you, you know Christ accepts you. Even if your
marriage falls apart, your heart with Jesus never will. Even
if you lose the job, you lose, the friend, you lose,
the stop, you lose, the things you do, not lose
a single thing that God has a portion for you
from the heavenly realm, from before the foundations of the earth,
(20:11):
and that God is right now using whatever is hurting
you and wounding you for your good because He loves you,
and what he starts in you, He's faithful.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
To complete in you until the day of Christ.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Jesus, this is how you can love your wives as
Christ love the Church.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
This is how you can obey your parents. This is
how you can fight in the spiritual realm, because you
know who you are.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
He says to the praise verse six of this glorious
grace which he blessed us in the blood. Paul picks
up on this theme in first second Timothy one to nine,
and he says God saved us and called us to
a holy calling. Look at the next line. If you
got your nose underline the next line, not because of
(20:57):
our works, but because of his own purpose and grace.
I'm saved because it was in God's purpose to save me.
I did not find Jesus. Jesus found me. I did
not earn Christian faith. Jesus gave it to me through
(21:18):
the regenerative work of the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Some of you gotta realize you were not looking for God.
You were not trying to get saved.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
You were trying to maybe get the goodies from God.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
You were looking for his blessing. You were looking for him.
He was looking for you, and he sent people in
your life. See you gonna remember this. Yes, you got saved.
I get it. You just said yes to Jesus.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
You raise your hand, you went through the water's baptistm
you did the thing, you came down to the altar, whatever
you did to come to Jesus.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
But don't you understand that there was a series of
events that led you to that moment.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Don't you understand There was a friend who invited you
to church.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
There was a parent who raised in Brodye of Sunday
School when he didn't want to go.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
There was somebody who said, you mattered.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
To God, and because you mattered to God, you mattered
to me. And all those people worked behind the scenes
of your life when you were running from God, and
they were pulling you and pulling you and pulling you
through the Holy Spirit to bring you to a place
where you finally polled the knee and said yes to
the God who hunted you down and saved you say, man,
(22:18):
I never saw it that way. That's because you haven't
read the Bible. Religion is not getting your life together.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Well, that is religion.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Christianity is not getting your life together.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Christianity is coming to the end of your life and
letting God give you new life in Him. You can't
become a Christian until you give up. You can't become
a Christian.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Until you surrender both your sin and your righteousness to God.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
What do you say righteousness? Because your righteousness is not
righteous enough.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
And then look at this line and second Timothy. One
night he gave us this purpose in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Less war words everybody before the ages begin.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
You think there's a theme being picked up here in
the New Testament.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Well, I chose Jesus. Nope, Jesus even said their disciples
in John fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
You did not choose me, but I chose you, and
I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit,
and that your fruit should abide. A lot of people
get all messed up with the concept of predestination.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
They don't like it.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I don't like predestination because that means God does it all,
and I don't do nothing. Yep, as God being God.
That's God doing what you can't do, saving you. If
you could save yourself, Jesus never had to come. If
it was about just obeying the rules, God would have
just given us a law and left it at that
(23:57):
and said, good luck. But the law is impossible to follow.
Every single one of us knows that. Every single one
of us understands that we can't even obey our own
stinking laws.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
You probably broke a law on the way to church,
did didn't you? Sinners?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
You probably break Some of you guys are breaking law
right now. There's a pretty girl in front of you
at church. You're breaking the law right now.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Stop it. Every new year, I'm gonna make a resolution.
I'm gonna lose fifteen pounds February twenty thirty A. Forget it.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You can't even keep your own laws. How can you
expect to keep God's laws? If you could, God would
never have sent Jesus.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Jesus came to save people who couldn't keep the law.
He kept the law, He fulfilled the law. He did what.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You could not do to give you what you could
not have apart from him. That's some people say, well,
God chooses I guess I don't have to do anything.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
No, look at what Jesus said.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
You did not choose me, but I chose you, and
I appointed you that you should go. That's doing something
and bear fruit, that's doing something else.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
If there's no fruit, there might not be a salvation.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
If there's no desire for God, if there's no hunger
for his word, if there's no love for your neighbor,
if there's no desire to be be serviced to the
world and to be used of.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
God, there might not be a salvation.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
This idea that I can get saved, put my hand
up and then go, might live my own life on
my own terms is anathema to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If God chooses you, he chooses you and appoints you
to do great things that will live on for all eternity.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, yeah, you got a job to do that.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
That's Ephesians four to six. But you can't do it
unless you know who you are.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So I want to give you some good news about
the choosing of God.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Letter A in your notes. God's choosing us humbles us.
If it's all God and not of you, guess what
that means for you? Then all the praise goes to
him and it humbles you. It gives you a confidence
that's not rooted in your ego. You know what your
problem is? You you know what's wrong with your marriage?
(26:17):
You you know what's wrong with your dating life? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, yeah, you know what's wrong with your kids them.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna see that ground. All right,
there's a little bit of a problem with me. But anyway,
I'm humbled.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
When I'm humbled, I'm confident, not in my ego but
in my God. It should bring it should bring gratitude
to your life to know God chose you. And we've
got to break free from this modern pop psychology version
of the gospel that God saw you and he just
(27:08):
loved everything about you, and you were just beautiful and
wonderful and so and so he took the blood of
Jesus to pay for you because you're that valuable.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
You're just that valuable Jesus blood blood run.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
You were a sinner, you you were you were a wretch.
That's why the song says, amazing grace in our sweet
the sound that saved ah wretch like not a beautiful person,
a wretch.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So we've got to break free from them.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That's that's you were not paid for by the blood
of Jesus because you're valuable. You were You were paid
for by the blood of Jesus because God is good.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
It's for his glory and renown. I want you to
write down so you get it right.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
God does not love us because we're valuable. We're valuable
because God loves us.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Big difference.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
One is rooted in who you are, the other is
rooted in who He is. And you want your life
and your value and your self worth to come from who.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
God is, not who you are. I'm valuable because God
loved me. Amen.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
In the economy of salvation, Christian, I got bad news
and I got good news. You brought nothing to the
table bad news, good news. God paid it all in Jesus.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Let her be.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
God's choosing us separates us from the world. He separates us,
and a lot of Christians are not understanding this today,
and this is why they're falling for political jargon and
social concepts and nonsense and false doctrines and what Paul
calls the doctrines of demons in the age that we live.
(29:10):
And this is why a lot of Christians are not
going to survive.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
The end times. A lot of professing professing Christians are
not going to last.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
And this is why a lot of Christians, professing Christians
give up on the faith at some point in their life.
And you may have heard of some famous Christian artist, singer,
writer who suddenly became an atheist. I got news for
you is because they were never really Christians. They were
never really in the body. And what happens when you
(29:37):
get saved is God separates you from the world.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And if you're not separated from.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
The world, you will be constantly drawn by the.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
World back into the world.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But what Christ does is he cuts ties with you
in the world.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Does that mean that you're never gonna be tempting? Can?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Of course, it doesn't mean that that residue of that
Adamic nature, that nature of Adam is still in you.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
But you know that if you go.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Back and taste it, it's gonna be like dust in
your mouth because it doesn't satisfy you the way it
used to. No, God's given you a new taste, a
new flavor in your mouth. It's the flavor of God.
Taste and see that the Lord is good. And if
you know He's good. Then you know the world doesn't
have the goods.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Separated.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Scripture says here in Ephesians one, that we should be holy.
Somebody say holy, Now, holy does not have anything to
do with your moral performance. It has everything to do
with God's designating you for sanctified purposes. Holiness is not
moral performance. It is God's designating you for sanctified purposes.
In my house growing up, my mom my mom had
(30:44):
a hutch next to the dining room table. On the
hutch where plates and dishes and saucers, and we never
were allowed to touch.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Those plates. Those plates came out twice a year.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You tell me what days they came out Christmas and yeah,
Easter or Thanksgiving? Yeah yeah, yeah, those were like some Christians,
Christmas and Easter only. Yeah, and stay with me. In
the cabinet, there were regular plates that she bought at Walmart,
(31:28):
and we use those plates every day.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
But woe to me.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
If I had dared touch the sacred plates a nuts.
Those plates were.
Speaker 6 (31:41):
Holy, separated out of the cabinet of normal use for
wonderful purposes.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
You did not take one of those holy plates and
make yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Some Kraft macaroni and cheese on that plate. You did
not cookies on that plate. You did not.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Put gross cheerios in those bowls. No, those plays were sacred,
set apart.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
For good things, great things, Ladies and gentlemen. If you
are in Christ, you are those plates.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Don't go putting peanut butter and jelly on you. Don't
go putting spaghettios in you. A stuff is junk, and
you are not made for junk. You were made for
the glory of God Almighty. And he washed you, and
he cleansed you, and you made He made you hold it.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You are set apart for His purposes. Stop messing around.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
With the world's playground. Get out of the mud. It's
not for you anymore, doesn't fit, and it's not proper.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Let her see.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
God's choosing us glorifies himself. I'm not saved to bring
glory to me, and save to bring glory to God.
What does he say in verse five? He predestined us
for adoption to himself according to the purpose.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, Paul.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Says to Timothy and one Timothy one point fifteen. Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners Christ, Jesus
came into the world to save who.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Says, if you're a sinner, you're candidate for the grace
of God.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's the righteous church goers who don't think they need it.
It's the self righteous churchgoers who don't turn to Jesus.
They turn to their own goodness and think that makes
them holy. Nope, Christ came in the world save sinners.
And then Paul says, of whom I am the foremost,
I'm the worst of sinners.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
But I received mercy.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
For this reason that in me, for this reason I
received mercy. I was a terrible sinner, Timothy. I tried
to kill the church. I killed them. I wanted to
wipe out the church. But God showed me mercy, not
because I was valuable. No, that in me, as the
worst of sinners, Christ might display his perfect patience.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
When you see the.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Apostle, Paul saved and set apart to write one third
of the New Testament to spread the Gospel around the
known world of the first century. You got to see
that that all happened to show the world that if
God could save him, he could save anybody. I know.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I got prisoners watching me right now in Nofolk.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You're in jail right now. You're thinking I've done and
I'm lost, I'm worthless.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
No, you're not.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
If God could save the apostle Paul, he can save you,
and he can use you, and he can raise you up,
and he can put your feet on the wrong and
he can make you into a mighty man on woman
of God. It has nothing to do with what you
bring to the table. I told you already, you brought nothing.
It has everything to do with what He brings to
the table. And there's an example so that other people
(35:03):
who believe can say, whoa whoa, whoa whoa.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
You can say that guy, you can save me.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Whenever you see pastor guys are preaching the gospel up here,
you need to remember that God brought him from the
from the streets of South Africa, from drug drunk alcohol addiction,
and from deviciousness and all the sins of the world,
and God set them apart and cleansed them and made
him a mighty man of God for fifty years preaching
the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Only God can do that. Some of you need to
realize that who you are.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Is for the glory of the name of Jesus, because
you're in defense mode all the time.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
You're in defense mode all the time. You're like, oh no, no, no,
I'm sorry, Oh no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And somebody said to you, listen, you know, you Christians,
you're so fake, you're so bad.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Look at you.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
You're and you mess up at work and you swear,
and then they say, oh, I thought you're a Christian.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I thought you're at you're a Christian and you I'm
so s s You're right.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Stop.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
What you need to start saying is, hey, you should
have seen me without Jesus and you want to talk
about some swearing.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Man, I would have nailed you.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
You better.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Thank God he saved me. It makes it possible to
sand being around me. Amen, somebody, honey, can we be
honest about who we are? Can we let the world
know we're just as bad as everybody else.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
But it was the.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Grace of God Almighty who saved us and set us
apart for his glory.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
It's not about us, it's about him. Those things says.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
If you see a turtle on a fence post, you
know one thing's for sure. The turtle didn't get there
by himself. Right, You're a turtle on offense. Most God
put you there. Number two. In the sun, we have
an intimacy and unity with God. In the sun, we
have an intimacy unity with God.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
We have and.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Paul's gonna just unpack this. Jesus, we have redemption forgiveness
of our sin. So letter A letter A, we are
redeemed from slavery to sin. You're not if before Jesus.
You're not just a sinner. You're a slave to sin.
Roman six read it slaves descind, slaves descend, slaves descin
(37:19):
Psalm fifty one, verse five, I was brought forth in sin,
in sin, my mother conceived me. You see a child
come out of the womb. You think it's all cute
and cuddly and beautiful. Wrong, sinner, that's a viper and
a diaper.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
That's what that is.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
It's not gonna take long before you realize this. Satan's
got a hold that child. You know you're locked in sin.
You're under the dominion of sin. Psalm nineteen, verse thirteen says,
keep back your servant from presumptuous sins.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Let them not have dominion over me. Uh dominion. There's
a Satanic dominion in this world.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
The reason why this world seems to be getting worse
is because it's following it's God.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
It's doing what it should do. Sinner sin, that's what
they do.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Stop arguing with them, Stop trying to make them Christians
by moral performance.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
That's not how it works. They're sinners.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
And if you're not in Christ Jesus, you're a slave
des sin. That's why you can't stop the addiction. That's
why you can't stop the drinking, the gossiping, the slandering,
the pornography, the lavicious hibousness, the lust, the creed, the emerald.
You can't stop it because you're a slave to it.
And so what we need is redemption. Redemption in the
(38:39):
Roman world meant that somebody paid for the slave to
be set free. Jesus's blood was the payment that God
made to set you free from your slavery.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
To sin.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Now in Christ doesn't mean you're never going to sin.
It just means that you're freed from slavery. You can
start to walk away from it. And it's progressive and.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Happens over time and you learn and you grow, but
you can't go back. Now. You're a slave to righteousness.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
That's why you can't go back because you're now a slave.
There's no such thing as a free person. You understand
that right. You're either a slave to sin or your
slave to righteousness. You either want to serve God or
you want to serve the devil.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
And so here's what it says. In First Peter one.
It says you were ransomed. There's another word for payment
from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers. Not with
perishable things as silver and gold, but the precious blood
of Jesus Christ. Let her be you're forgiven of all
your sins. You were washed clean. God does not hold
your sins against you. In Christ, Jesus. Let her see
(39:39):
we are united in Christ with God. You are united
with Him. The theologians call it union with Christ. When
God sees you, he sees his son wrapped around you.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
You are in Christ.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Just like Noah was in the Ark, and the ark
took the wrath of God, and the waves and the
and the.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Storm crashed all on that arc. Noah was safe in
the Ark.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
In Christ, Jesus on the cross, Jesus took the wrath
of God and the waves and the storm hit him
on that cross from every angle, every hand, every foot,
and he bore the punishment of your sin. And if
you are in Christ, you are safe from punishment for sin.
You are safe in the ark of Jesus, and you
(40:27):
are united with God in Christ. You gotta rush out
for what you unite yourself with, because this world will
give you infinite opportunities to be united with the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
I was reading an article about a young girl.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
At the age of twelve, in a prepubescent years, she
decided she was a boy, and she went and tried
to live as a boy for a few years. Christ
came and saved her, redeemed her, washed her, cleansed her,
set her free, rooted her in the family, and now
she's living as a healthy young woman of God. But
in her testimony she says, here's what led me down
(41:00):
the path of transgenderism. Two things she said, First, I
always felt a disconnection in my life. And secondly, this
culture constantly celebrates transgenders, so I thought, if I wanted
to be celebrated, I should be transgender. Ladies and gentlemen
of America. I bid you to hear me right now.
(41:23):
There is an infinite cost upon our children for what
this culture chooses to celebrate. Be careful, be careful of
the alone time that you give with your children, because
now they have a window in their bedrooms twenty four
hours a day to give them options to listen to
(41:44):
the celebrations of the world and to try to find connection.
And so I have to tell you this that, of
course the young woman felt disconnected. She was Every person
is born disconnected from God. And if we don't find
our connection with Him, we will look for connection from
almost anything else.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
In Him. We are united with God.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
He walks with us, he talks with us, He leads
us in the way of salvation.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I don't want what this world has for me, because
my Shepherd's got a pasture ready for me, ready for me.
I know who I am in Him. I don't need
to know who I am in this world. Number three,
Father Son's Spirit. By the Spirit, we have a guarantee
of future glory past. The Father put a destiny on
(42:50):
us from eternity past present. We walk and talk with Jesus.
We are united with God and the Son. Future glory,
future glory. If you're in Christ Jesus and you're going
through hell. I want to give you a little silver lining.
This is the closest to Hell you will ever get.
(43:16):
If you are not in Christ Jesus and your life
seems pretty good and you don't want anything.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
To do with Jesus, you.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Better soak it up because this is the closest to
Heaven you're ever gonna get.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
The choice is in your hands. Yes, God has revealed himself.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
And if you don't hearten your heart, but surrender and
humble yourself and realize that by divine design you've rushed
you to this moment.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
You'll miss out.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I'm the greatest blessing of knowing who you are in Christ,
Paul says, and ephesis eleven, verse one, verse eleven.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
In Him, we have obtained an inheritance. What's it? Inheritance?
And inheritance is something that comes later, And then.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
He says, skip down to verse's thirteen. In Him, you also,
when you heard the Word of truth and believed you
were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, the guarantee of
our inheritance until He comes to until we come to
a choir possession of it, to the praise of His glory.
The word seal is important because the word seal has
(44:20):
two meanings. Number one, in the Bible, the word seal
refers to a king's authority. When a king wanted to
seal something, it was to say. It was to say,
no one can break that who is under the authority
of this king. So when they bury Jesus in the grave,
what do they say the Pharisees comes, They put to Pilot.
They say, Pilot puts your seal on the grave, so
(44:41):
that no one can break the seal who is under
your authority. And then in Daniel chapter six, when they
threw Daniel into the lion's den, remember this, they said, Darius,
put your seal. The king put your seal on the
on the den, so that no one who is under
your authority can break the seal.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Well, I got good news for you. Let me tell
you how those stories ended.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
There's someone who is over the authority of Pilate, and
there's someone who's over the authority of Darius, and his
name is Jesus Christ, and he broke the seal because
he has the authority to break the.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
King's seals of this earth. But I got greater news
for you.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
That's you're sealed in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
And no one is.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
More powerful than the Holy Spirit, which means no one
can break the seal of God over your life, not
even you, not even you. And then there was a second,
the second illustration of that word in the Old Testament,
a seal in the ancient world. In antiquity, a seal
is actually referred to an engagement ring. So when you
(45:44):
think about a guy falls in love with the girl
and he puts an engagement ring on her finger, what
does that mean We're getting married?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Not today but soon?
Speaker 2 (45:55):
And then if you think about these young ladies, if
you are engaged, you ain't hiding that thing.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Ah, You're like, well, I don't know if I want
to let anybody know. You're like, hey, hey, hey, he proposed.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Prays right, because you know there's a day coming, you know,
no more lonely Valentine's days, no more boring Christmases. I
got somebody who loved me and chose me and made
me his own. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're a Christian,
(46:35):
if you're a child of the Moose, Hi God, you
got somebody who loves you and chose you to make
you his own. You got somebody who's preparing a wedding
feast for you. You got somebody who's gonna glorify you and.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Exhaust you and lift you up.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
You got somebody in the throne of heaven who's gonna
watch out for you and make you finish the race
of Jesus.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
His name is Christ. You got somebody. You got something
to look forward to.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
And every girl who's engaged does not bother going slumming
with dudes other than her man. She saves herself for
that wedding night. She doesn't go on match dot com.
She doesn't go on Christian mingle because she knows she's
(47:22):
no longer single. Christians don't go slumming. You're engaged to
the King of Heaven. You got a day coming. There's
a wedding feast being prepared for you. Sermon and a sentence.
The Father has destined us for a life of intimacy,
(47:46):
and the Son who saved us by the power of
the Holy Spirit, who roots us in the glorious hope
that awaits us. That's a mouthful, but that's good. What
was church about today? That's it. The Sun has destined
us for a life of intimacy, and the Son who
saved us by the power of the Holy Spirit, who
roots us, and the hope, the glorious hope that awaits us.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
And if you're not in Christ Jesus, I implore you
come and surrender your life.
Ephesians chapter one.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We're gonna go through a series of messages called Blessed Strangers.
The ED is strong, So it's not blessed strangers, it's
blessed strangers. The ED is strong because I want to
give you the ed, the education on why you're blessed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And what what's the term strangers for it?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Because we are strange to this world, Christians, you are
strange to this world. The more you grow in Christ,
the stranger you should feel to the world around you.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Does that make sense? More growth in Christ, more.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Uncomfortability on this earth because we are not of this world.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And so every day for Brandon and Guatemalo's a war.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Hey, every day for you is a war. Just some
of you not woken up to it yet. And you
got to remember that when this message ends and you
go back outside these doors or all over locations, you
are entering into a battlefield. And so as we go
through Ephesians, we're gonna go in this series through Ephesians
one through three. Now, if you got your paper bible open,
(01:14):
just flip through the Book of Ephesians real quick. Can
anybody tell me shout it out if you know it
at all? Our locations. How many chapters are in Ephesians, Yeah, six,
little pastor how can we're stopping at chapter three? Here's
why because usually when we teach Ephesians and church, we
go to the last part of Aphesians and we ignore
the first part of Ephesians. When we want to talk
(01:37):
about marriage, we go to Aphesian chapter five, and then
we tell husbands, love your wives, and wives submit to
your husbands. Every woman's favorite Bible verse, I know, Ephesians.
And then when we talk about parenting, you know, children
obey your parents and father's discipline and instruct your children
in Ephesian chapter six. And then when we talk about
(01:58):
how to think, we can go to Fhesian chapter four.
And then and when we want to talk about spiritual warfare,
which we just talked about warfare, well, that's the Feesian
chapter six, verse twelve, that we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against the principality of spiritual forces of
wickedness in the heavenly places. And so here's what we
typically do with the Book of Ephesians. We go to
the end of the book for what we should do
(02:19):
and ignore the first part of the book, which tells
us how we are able in Christ Jesus to do it.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I like to say that the first part of the book,
and I want you to write this down, tells us
who you are. The second part of the book tells
you what to do, So write it down. Ephesians four
to six, which is what we're not going to cover
in this series.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Is what we do. But Ephesians one to three is
who we are. Do you know who you are?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Dear Christian child of God, Father of Jesus, blood bought
Saint of the Living most High?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I do you know who you are? Because if you
don't know who you are, how you supposed to do
what God has called you to do?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And I want to tell you that what God has
done for you and who God has made you is
the impetus behind being able and empowered to do what
God wants you to do, period full stop.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Now, I want to illustrate this because sometimes we don't
get it.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
But has anybody in here or in our all over locations,
has anybody ever flown anywhere?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Been on a plane? Yes?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Okay, how many know a plane has wings and a
plane has wheels, And I fly back and forth to
Florida a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And so I get on a lot of planes, and
I go back and forth. And I had this thought
as I was getting on the plane recently, and I
looked at the planes. It's got wheels, it's got wings.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Technically you could drive the plane to Massachusetts. I mean
technically you could, right, because it's got wheels.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And if you were to be.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Someone from the sixteen hundreds, like if we actually did
create the DeLorean and got ourselves the flex capacitor and
went back in time and got Louis the sixteenth and
brought him to America in twenty twenty one, and said, listen,
Louis sit in this plane. What do you think he
might be tempted to think, Well, this is a modern chariot,
and let me just drive this thing from Florida.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And to massa jusets, how many know you. It take
a long time, and it caused a lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
The plane would get destroyed, houses would get destroyed, and
the trip would be generally uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
But you got to know what those wings are for.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
When you know what the plane has to empower the
plane to be what it's supposed to be, you won't
treat the plane like a car.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
What am I saying this for?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Because some of you Christians don't realize that God wants
you to rise up with wings and not roll through
life with wheels. Too many Christians are rolling when they
should be flying. Too many Christians are struggling when they
should be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ, who love them.
(05:17):
Too many Christians are looking for the love of this
world when they need to deepen themselves in the love
of the Father, who is not of this world. Too
many Christians are expecting this world to approve of them
when they need to remember that God Almighty already gives
him their approval, his approval and nothing in this world
can satisfy you outside the love.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I want this series to give you wings so that
you stop rolling through life, because if you roll through life,
you're going to destroy.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Others or you destroy yourself.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
But if you learn how to fly, my Bible tells
me they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run,
not grow weary, they shall walk and not fain. Are
there some weary Christians in this place today? Are there
some tired, worn out believers who need to mount up
(06:12):
with wings? Ephesians chapter one through three is the fuel
to your flight. Stand with me as we read chapter
one to verse fourteen Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus
by the will of God, and that line the will
of God is very important.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
For the rest of these three chapters.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Everything about us is because of the will of God.
I am who I am by the will of God.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I am not self made. He made me. Amen some
mondy okay.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful
in Christ, Jesus, Grace to you and peace from God
the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed Somebody say
blessed here it is blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus in the heavenly places,
(07:17):
even as He chose us in Him before the foundations
of the world, that we should be wholly in blameless
before Him in love. He predestined us for adoption as
sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
to the praise of his glorious Christ, which he has
blessed us in the beloved. In Him, we have redemption
(07:37):
through His blood, the forgiveness of all of our trespasses,
according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished
upon us in all wisdom and in sight, making known
to us the mystery of His will, according to his purpose,
which he set forth in Christ as a plan for
the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him,
things in heaven and things on earth.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
In Him, we have obtained an inheritance.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who
works all things according to the council of his will,
so that we who were first to hope in Christ,
might be to.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
The praise of His glory. And you in Him. You also,
when you heard the.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and believed
in Him, were sealed.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Somebody say sealed.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is
the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire it and
take possession of it to the praise of His glory.
That's as far as we're going to get. This is
the reading of God's word. Let's pray, Father, I ask
(08:49):
this moment is governed by the Holy Spirit, that our
hearts are open, that our ears are open, and we
receive truth transforms us.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Help us to see Jesus.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Him and Him only and his money name me. Praying
everybody said, Amen, God, bless you have a seat. So
Ephesians is a letter. It's a letter to the first
century church in ephesis by the apostle Paul.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And the first two verses there.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Are the introduction, introduction, and a salutation, just like you.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Would write a letter today. But from verse three. If
you look at your Bible.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
From verse three through all the way to verse fourteen,
that entire chap, that entire section in the original language
is one long sentence, one long Now.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I was a public school.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Educated and I was good at math.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I was terrible at reading in English.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And now God has me writing and reading for a living.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
That's Scott's humor right there. But anyway, I struggled with writing,
and I used to get my papers back with the
big red letters on the entire page are o s
meaning what yes, run on sentence. I've got some friends
(10:09):
in the audience who had that experience as well. In
other words, you gotta put a period. At some point
you gotta stop the thought and begin another one. But
when Paul the Apostles starts talking about who we are
in Christ, he can't stop. He just runs on and
on and on, and he wants us to understand. And
I think what he does is he starts out saying,
(10:30):
let me tell these people who they are. Let me
tell Christians what Christians really are. Christians are not second
class citizens. Christians are not losers. Christians are not outcasts.
Christians are beloved, They're chosen, They're predestined, they belong to God,
they are forgiven, they are redeemed, they are valuable to
God Almighty. And I think he just gets caught up
(10:52):
in the moment of telling us who we are and
he can't stop, and he just gives glory to God.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
For what God has made us to be. And so
the first.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Word in Fesis chapter one, verse three is blessed. Look
at it, blessed be the God. This is worship. I
want Paul saying, I'm worshiping God for what God.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Has made you and I to be in Christ.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Jesus, how many know in this house that being saved
is good. Being God's people is good knowing that my
sins are forgiven is a blessing. Knowing that I'm out
of my way to heaven is a blessing that I
know Jesus is with me. I've got something to worship.
(11:42):
God's for in my life. And if you know who
you are in Christ, it should turn into worship of
the God who made you who you are. That's why
Christians worship. Christians do not worship because they're trying to
earn goodies from God. I hope you didn't come to
church today because you made a plan with God on
(12:02):
Wednesday that you really want something from his hand on Monday,
so you came to his house on Sunday to wrangle
it out of his hand.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
That's not gonna work. That's an economic relationship. God's not
into economic relationships. He's into love relationships, and he wants
to love you as a father who loves his children unconditionally.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Blessed.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
He's worshiping, and so in the Old Testament, the Jews
and the people of Israel would worship God for saving.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Them out of Egypt.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
If you read the Psalms, the worship hymnal of the Bible,
you'll see time and time again, they talk about the
Red Sea.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
They worship God in the psalms.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
The red Sea, the red sea, he divided, the sea,
he provided man in the wilderness. And what they are
doing is they are singing about what God has done
for them. If you know what God has done for you,
it should produce worship out of you. One of the
things that I know is problematic in the church today
is a lack of worship, and maybe the life lack
(13:00):
of worship is because we have a lack of understanding
of what God has done, so that when we show
up at church on Sunday, we don't show up.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Waiting for the right song to start.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
We don't show up waiting for the Holy Ghost goosebumps
to start. We don't show up and judge the performance
of the people on stage as if as if we
went to a U two concert. Well, I don't really
like that song. Well that's not really my style.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I mean, she didn't sing that right, I'm not really
into it. No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
A Christian doesn't worship because they like the song. A
Christian worship because they love the Savior, Blessed be the
God and Father of a Lord, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And I want to ask you, are you blessed? He says,
he's blessed us Are you blessed? Why? Why are you blessed?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Some of you will say, well, I'm blessed because I'm healthy,
I was born in America, or I live in America,
or was born whatever, I got parents, I got a family,
I got a bed.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Those are material, circumstantial blessings.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And the word here in the Greek is ugleo, which
we get the word eulogy from.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You la gayo, which we get the word eulogy from.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
When you speak of eulogy, you are trying to bring
that person you know to life. You're trying to you're
trying to show the goodness of that person.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
You ever go to a funeral and you knew.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
That the guy in the box was not nearly as
good as the guy talking about him on the stage, right,
the guy's like over selling this guy, Like I knew
that dude he was not that nice, right, And so
eulogy is always trying to talk, you know, well over
a person. Well, it comes from the word you let
gayo in Greek, which means God has you look gayoed
(14:42):
you he's major better than you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
because you're not that great. Yeah, turn it in air
and say you're not that great.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, don't do that. Husband's just let her do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
But anyway, God in Christ Jesus has you loo I
owed you, he has He has given you a blessing.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Why are you blessed?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Here's why Verse four Verse four of Ephesians one. Even
as he chose us, somebody say, I'm chosen. If you're
in Christ Jesus, if you've repented of your sins, if
you've given your life to Jesus Christ, you are chosen.
And then look at the next line. Can you just
read it with me? Chose us in him? Say these
(15:24):
words everybody at all of our locations, before the foundation
of the world, When did you get saved? I got
saved nineteen ninety one. Well, I got saved in nineteen
seventy eight. Who I got saved in twenty fifteen?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
I got.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
That's when you woke up. That's when you got holy ghost,
woke to what God already did. Listen before the foundation
of the world. See, God chose you before you showed up. Now,
(16:02):
there's a lot of theologians that like to interpret that
verse and say, well, that's because God saw what you
were gonna do. He saw you, he saw what you're
gonna do, and then he decided to choose you. That
makes it based on what you do. That makes it
based on works. And it is not of works. Ephes
in chapter two eight is as clear as day. It
(16:23):
is not of works, so that no one can boast.
It is by grace you are saved. And I'm trying to.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Tell you today that God in heaven saw you before
the foundation of the world, before he said let there
be light, you were on his mind.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
He chose you in him before the foundation of the world.
This is the blessing of being chosen. Title of the message.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
So three realities from the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit working together to make us who we are.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Point number one.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
From the Father, we have a destiny rooted in eternity past.
From the Father, we have a destiny rooted in eternity past.
Do you ever feel like there's something working behind the
scenes of your life.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Newsflash, there is.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
There's someone who saw you from the foundations of the earth,
and he circumvented the situations. He used the negative institutions,
he used the trouble, he used the trials.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
He used the bad, he used.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The good, and he weaved it like a master weaver.
He weaved it all together to create for you a
destiny that has been formed for you from before the
foundation of the earth, to make you a new creation.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
In his son, Jesus Christ. What I'm trying to tell
you is, you're not a nobody. You're not a cosmic accident.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You did not arrive here because apes learned how to
stand fully upright.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
You are here today.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
You are where you are today and all of our
locations if you are in Christ Jesus, because God the
Father saw you and chose you and made you who
you are. He chose you verse four again from the
foundations of the earth, that we should be holy. We'll
get to that in a moment. He predestined us for adoption.
I think about Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs changed the world, right, Yeah,
(18:30):
if you have one of theses because of Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Even if you've.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Got a Samsung, which is the Devil's version of this book,
this thing, you understand that the people of Samsung, there's
the legend. People of Samsung were watching Steve Jobs talk
about the reveal of this phone and all the executives
were like, how on earth did he do that? And
so they just copied it and stole it and made
a subpar phone. Anyway, changed the world. But do you
(18:56):
know that he was adopted and when he was when
he's a little boy, she made fun of him. She said,
you're adopted because your parents didn't want you. And he
burst out into tears and you ran home to his
adoptive parents and he said, she told me that my
parents did a woman and they're like west Roxy.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
She told me that my parents that wove.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
It, and these parents with wisdom said Steve, we wanted you,
we chose you. And he said that from that moment forward,
his life had a propulsion to destiny. Knowing that you
are chosen changes everything. Christian, do you know that you
(19:40):
are chosen by the Father. That should change how you
see yourself. That should empower how you relate to everybody around.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
You, because even if they.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Reject you, you know Christ accepts you. Even if your
marriage falls apart, your heart with Jesus never will. Even
if you lose the job, you lose, the friend, you lose,
the stop, you lose, the things you do, not lose
a single thing that God has a portion for you
from the heavenly realm, from before the foundations of the earth,
(20:11):
and that God is right now using whatever is hurting
you and wounding you for your good because He loves you,
and what he starts in you, He's faithful.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
To complete in you until the day of Christ.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Jesus, this is how you can love your wives as
Christ love the Church.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
This is how you can obey your parents. This is
how you can fight in the spiritual realm, because you
know who you are.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
He says to the praise verse six of this glorious
grace which he blessed us in the blood. Paul picks
up on this theme in first second Timothy one to nine,
and he says God saved us and called us to
a holy calling. Look at the next line. If you
got your nose underline the next line, not because of
(20:57):
our works, but because of his own purpose and grace.
I'm saved because it was in God's purpose to save me.
I did not find Jesus. Jesus found me. I did
not earn Christian faith. Jesus gave it to me through
(21:18):
the regenerative work of the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Some of you gotta realize you were not looking for God.
You were not trying to get saved.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
You were trying to maybe get the goodies from God.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
You were looking for his blessing. You were looking for him.
He was looking for you, and he sent people in
your life. See you gonna remember this. Yes, you got saved.
I get it. You just said yes to Jesus.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
You raise your hand, you went through the water's baptistm
you did the thing, you came down to the altar, whatever
you did to come to Jesus.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
But don't you understand that there was a series of
events that led you to that moment.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Don't you understand There was a friend who invited you
to church.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
There was a parent who raised in Brodye of Sunday
School when he didn't want to go.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
There was somebody who said, you mattered.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
To God, and because you mattered to God, you mattered
to me. And all those people worked behind the scenes
of your life when you were running from God, and
they were pulling you and pulling you and pulling you
through the Holy Spirit to bring you to a place
where you finally polled the knee and said yes to
the God who hunted you down and saved you say, man,
(22:18):
I never saw it that way. That's because you haven't
read the Bible. Religion is not getting your life together.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Well, that is religion.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Christianity is not getting your life together.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Christianity is coming to the end of your life and
letting God give you new life in Him. You can't
become a Christian until you give up. You can't become
a Christian.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Until you surrender both your sin and your righteousness to God.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
What do you say righteousness? Because your righteousness is not
righteous enough.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
And then look at this line and second Timothy. One
night he gave us this purpose in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Less war words everybody before the ages begin.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
You think there's a theme being picked up here in
the New Testament.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Well, I chose Jesus. Nope, Jesus even said their disciples
in John fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
You did not choose me, but I chose you, and
I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit,
and that your fruit should abide. A lot of people
get all messed up with the concept of predestination.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
They don't like it.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I don't like predestination because that means God does it all,
and I don't do nothing. Yep, as God being God.
That's God doing what you can't do, saving you. If
you could save yourself, Jesus never had to come. If
it was about just obeying the rules, God would have
just given us a law and left it at that
(23:57):
and said, good luck. But the law is impossible to follow.
Every single one of us knows that. Every single one
of us understands that we can't even obey our own
stinking laws.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
You probably broke a law on the way to church,
did didn't you? Sinners?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
You probably break Some of you guys are breaking law
right now. There's a pretty girl in front of you
at church. You're breaking the law right now.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Stop it. Every new year, I'm gonna make a resolution.
I'm gonna lose fifteen pounds February twenty thirty A. Forget it.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You can't even keep your own laws. How can you
expect to keep God's laws? If you could, God would
never have sent Jesus.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Jesus came to save people who couldn't keep the law.
He kept the law, He fulfilled the law. He did what.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You could not do to give you what you could
not have apart from him. That's some people say, well,
God chooses I guess I don't have to do anything.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
No, look at what Jesus said.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
You did not choose me, but I chose you, and
I appointed you that you should go. That's doing something
and bear fruit, that's doing something else.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
If there's no fruit, there might not be a salvation.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
If there's no desire for God, if there's no hunger
for his word, if there's no love for your neighbor,
if there's no desire to be be serviced to the
world and to be used of.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
God, there might not be a salvation.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
This idea that I can get saved, put my hand
up and then go, might live my own life on
my own terms is anathema to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If God chooses you, he chooses you and appoints you
to do great things that will live on for all eternity.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, yeah, you got a job to do that.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
That's Ephesians four to six. But you can't do it
unless you know who you are.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So I want to give you some good news about
the choosing of God.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Letter A in your notes. God's choosing us humbles us.
If it's all God and not of you, guess what
that means for you? Then all the praise goes to
him and it humbles you. It gives you a confidence
that's not rooted in your ego. You know what your
problem is? You you know what's wrong with your marriage?
(26:17):
You you know what's wrong with your dating life? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, yeah, you know what's wrong with your kids them.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna see that ground. All right,
there's a little bit of a problem with me. But anyway,
I'm humbled.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
When I'm humbled, I'm confident, not in my ego but
in my God. It should bring it should bring gratitude
to your life to know God chose you. And we've
got to break free from this modern pop psychology version
of the gospel that God saw you and he just
(27:08):
loved everything about you, and you were just beautiful and
wonderful and so and so he took the blood of
Jesus to pay for you because you're that valuable.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
You're just that valuable Jesus blood blood run.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
You were a sinner, you you were you were a wretch.
That's why the song says, amazing grace in our sweet
the sound that saved ah wretch like not a beautiful person,
a wretch.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So we've got to break free from them.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That's that's you were not paid for by the blood
of Jesus because you're valuable. You were You were paid
for by the blood of Jesus because God is good.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
It's for his glory and renown. I want you to
write down so you get it right.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
God does not love us because we're valuable. We're valuable
because God loves us.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Big difference.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
One is rooted in who you are, the other is
rooted in who He is. And you want your life
and your value and your self worth to come from who.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
God is, not who you are. I'm valuable because God
loved me. Amen.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
In the economy of salvation, Christian, I got bad news
and I got good news. You brought nothing to the
table bad news, good news. God paid it all in Jesus.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Let her be.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
God's choosing us separates us from the world. He separates us,
and a lot of Christians are not understanding this today,
and this is why they're falling for political jargon and
social concepts and nonsense and false doctrines and what Paul
calls the doctrines of demons in the age that we live.
(29:10):
And this is why a lot of Christians are not
going to survive.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
The end times. A lot of professing professing Christians are
not going to last.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
And this is why a lot of Christians, professing Christians
give up on the faith at some point in their life.
And you may have heard of some famous Christian artist, singer,
writer who suddenly became an atheist. I got news for
you is because they were never really Christians. They were
never really in the body. And what happens when you
(29:37):
get saved is God separates you from the world.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And if you're not separated from.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
The world, you will be constantly drawn by the.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
World back into the world.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But what Christ does is he cuts ties with you
in the world.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Does that mean that you're never gonna be tempting? Can?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Of course, it doesn't mean that that residue of that
Adamic nature, that nature of Adam is still in you.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
But you know that if you go.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Back and taste it, it's gonna be like dust in
your mouth because it doesn't satisfy you the way it
used to. No, God's given you a new taste, a
new flavor in your mouth. It's the flavor of God.
Taste and see that the Lord is good. And if
you know He's good. Then you know the world doesn't
have the goods.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Separated.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Scripture says here in Ephesians one, that we should be holy.
Somebody say holy, Now, holy does not have anything to
do with your moral performance. It has everything to do
with God's designating you for sanctified purposes. Holiness is not
moral performance. It is God's designating you for sanctified purposes.
In my house growing up, my mom my mom had
(30:44):
a hutch next to the dining room table. On the
hutch where plates and dishes and saucers, and we never
were allowed to touch.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Those plates. Those plates came out twice a year.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You tell me what days they came out Christmas and yeah,
Easter or Thanksgiving? Yeah yeah, yeah, those were like some Christians,
Christmas and Easter only. Yeah, and stay with me. In
the cabinet, there were regular plates that she bought at Walmart,
(31:28):
and we use those plates every day.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
But woe to me.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
If I had dared touch the sacred plates a nuts.
Those plates were.
Speaker 6 (31:41):
Holy, separated out of the cabinet of normal use for
wonderful purposes.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
You did not take one of those holy plates and
make yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Some Kraft macaroni and cheese on that plate. You did
not cookies on that plate. You did not.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Put gross cheerios in those bowls. No, those plays were sacred,
set apart.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
For good things, great things, Ladies and gentlemen. If you
are in Christ, you are those plates.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Don't go putting peanut butter and jelly on you. Don't
go putting spaghettios in you. A stuff is junk, and
you are not made for junk. You were made for
the glory of God Almighty. And he washed you, and
he cleansed you, and you made He made you hold it.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You are set apart for His purposes. Stop messing around.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
With the world's playground. Get out of the mud. It's
not for you anymore, doesn't fit, and it's not proper.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Let her see.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
God's choosing us glorifies himself. I'm not saved to bring
glory to me, and save to bring glory to God.
What does he say in verse five? He predestined us
for adoption to himself according to the purpose.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, Paul.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Says to Timothy and one Timothy one point fifteen. Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners Christ, Jesus
came into the world to save who.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Says, if you're a sinner, you're candidate for the grace
of God.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's the righteous church goers who don't think they need it.
It's the self righteous churchgoers who don't turn to Jesus.
They turn to their own goodness and think that makes
them holy. Nope, Christ came in the world save sinners.
And then Paul says, of whom I am the foremost,
I'm the worst of sinners.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
But I received mercy.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
For this reason that in me, for this reason I
received mercy. I was a terrible sinner, Timothy. I tried
to kill the church. I killed them. I wanted to
wipe out the church. But God showed me mercy, not
because I was valuable. No, that in me, as the
worst of sinners, Christ might display his perfect patience.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
When you see the.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Apostle, Paul saved and set apart to write one third
of the New Testament to spread the Gospel around the
known world of the first century. You got to see
that that all happened to show the world that if
God could save him, he could save anybody. I know.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I got prisoners watching me right now in Nofolk.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You're in jail right now. You're thinking I've done and
I'm lost, I'm worthless.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
No, you're not.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
If God could save the apostle Paul, he can save you,
and he can use you, and he can raise you up,
and he can put your feet on the wrong and
he can make you into a mighty man on woman
of God. It has nothing to do with what you
bring to the table. I told you already, you brought nothing.
It has everything to do with what He brings to
the table. And there's an example so that other people
(35:03):
who believe can say, whoa whoa, whoa whoa.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
You can say that guy, you can save me.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Whenever you see pastor guys are preaching the gospel up here,
you need to remember that God brought him from the
from the streets of South Africa, from drug drunk alcohol addiction,
and from deviciousness and all the sins of the world,
and God set them apart and cleansed them and made
him a mighty man of God for fifty years preaching
the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Only God can do that. Some of you need to
realize that who you are.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Is for the glory of the name of Jesus, because
you're in defense mode all the time.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
You're in defense mode all the time. You're like, oh no, no, no,
I'm sorry, Oh no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And somebody said to you, listen, you know, you Christians,
you're so fake, you're so bad.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Look at you.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
You're and you mess up at work and you swear,
and then they say, oh, I thought you're a Christian.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I thought you're at you're a Christian and you I'm
so s s You're right.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Stop.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
What you need to start saying is, hey, you should
have seen me without Jesus and you want to talk
about some swearing.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Man, I would have nailed you.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
You better.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Thank God he saved me. It makes it possible to
sand being around me. Amen, somebody, honey, can we be
honest about who we are? Can we let the world
know we're just as bad as everybody else.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
But it was the.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Grace of God Almighty who saved us and set us
apart for his glory.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
It's not about us, it's about him. Those things says.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
If you see a turtle on a fence post, you
know one thing's for sure. The turtle didn't get there
by himself. Right, You're a turtle on offense. Most God
put you there. Number two. In the sun, we have
an intimacy and unity with God. In the sun, we
have an intimacy unity with God.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
We have and.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Paul's gonna just unpack this. Jesus, we have redemption forgiveness
of our sin. So letter A letter A, we are
redeemed from slavery to sin. You're not if before Jesus.
You're not just a sinner. You're a slave to sin.
Roman six read it slaves descind, slaves descend, slaves descin
(37:19):
Psalm fifty one, verse five, I was brought forth in sin,
in sin, my mother conceived me. You see a child
come out of the womb. You think it's all cute
and cuddly and beautiful. Wrong, sinner, that's a viper and
a diaper.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
That's what that is.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
It's not gonna take long before you realize this. Satan's
got a hold that child. You know you're locked in sin.
You're under the dominion of sin. Psalm nineteen, verse thirteen says,
keep back your servant from presumptuous sins.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Let them not have dominion over me. Uh dominion. There's
a Satanic dominion in this world.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
The reason why this world seems to be getting worse
is because it's following it's God.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
It's doing what it should do. Sinner sin, that's what
they do.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Stop arguing with them, Stop trying to make them Christians
by moral performance.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
That's not how it works. They're sinners.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
And if you're not in Christ Jesus, you're a slave
des sin. That's why you can't stop the addiction. That's
why you can't stop the drinking, the gossiping, the slandering,
the pornography, the lavicious hibousness, the lust, the creed, the emerald.
You can't stop it because you're a slave to it.
And so what we need is redemption. Redemption in the
(38:39):
Roman world meant that somebody paid for the slave to
be set free. Jesus's blood was the payment that God
made to set you free from your slavery.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
To sin.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Now in Christ doesn't mean you're never going to sin.
It just means that you're freed from slavery. You can
start to walk away from it. And it's progressive and.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Happens over time and you learn and you grow, but
you can't go back. Now. You're a slave to righteousness.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
That's why you can't go back because you're now a slave.
There's no such thing as a free person. You understand
that right. You're either a slave to sin or your
slave to righteousness. You either want to serve God or
you want to serve the devil.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
And so here's what it says. In First Peter one.
It says you were ransomed. There's another word for payment
from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers. Not with
perishable things as silver and gold, but the precious blood
of Jesus Christ. Let her be you're forgiven of all
your sins. You were washed clean. God does not hold
your sins against you. In Christ, Jesus. Let her see
(39:39):
we are united in Christ with God. You are united
with Him. The theologians call it union with Christ. When
God sees you, he sees his son wrapped around you.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
You are in Christ.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Just like Noah was in the Ark, and the ark
took the wrath of God, and the waves and the
and the.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Storm crashed all on that arc. Noah was safe in
the Ark.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
In Christ, Jesus on the cross, Jesus took the wrath
of God and the waves and the storm hit him
on that cross from every angle, every hand, every foot,
and he bore the punishment of your sin. And if
you are in Christ, you are safe from punishment for sin.
You are safe in the ark of Jesus, and you
(40:27):
are united with God in Christ. You gotta rush out
for what you unite yourself with, because this world will
give you infinite opportunities to be united with the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
I was reading an article about a young girl.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
At the age of twelve, in a prepubescent years, she
decided she was a boy, and she went and tried
to live as a boy for a few years. Christ
came and saved her, redeemed her, washed her, cleansed her,
set her free, rooted her in the family, and now
she's living as a healthy young woman of God. But
in her testimony she says, here's what led me down
(41:00):
the path of transgenderism. Two things she said, First, I
always felt a disconnection in my life. And secondly, this
culture constantly celebrates transgenders, so I thought, if I wanted
to be celebrated, I should be transgender. Ladies and gentlemen
of America. I bid you to hear me right now.
(41:23):
There is an infinite cost upon our children for what
this culture chooses to celebrate. Be careful, be careful of
the alone time that you give with your children, because
now they have a window in their bedrooms twenty four
hours a day to give them options to listen to
(41:44):
the celebrations of the world and to try to find connection.
And so I have to tell you this that, of
course the young woman felt disconnected. She was Every person
is born disconnected from God. And if we don't find
our connection with Him, we will look for connection from
almost anything else.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
In Him. We are united with God.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
He walks with us, he talks with us, He leads
us in the way of salvation.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I don't want what this world has for me, because
my Shepherd's got a pasture ready for me, ready for me.
I know who I am in Him. I don't need
to know who I am in this world. Number three,
Father Son's Spirit. By the Spirit, we have a guarantee
of future glory past. The Father put a destiny on
(42:50):
us from eternity past present. We walk and talk with Jesus.
We are united with God and the Son. Future glory,
future glory. If you're in Christ Jesus and you're going
through hell. I want to give you a little silver lining.
This is the closest to Hell you will ever get.
(43:16):
If you are not in Christ Jesus and your life
seems pretty good and you don't want anything.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
To do with Jesus, you.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Better soak it up because this is the closest to
Heaven you're ever gonna get.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
The choice is in your hands. Yes, God has revealed himself.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
And if you don't hearten your heart, but surrender and
humble yourself and realize that by divine design you've rushed
you to this moment.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
You'll miss out.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I'm the greatest blessing of knowing who you are in Christ,
Paul says, and ephesis eleven, verse one, verse eleven.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
In Him, we have obtained an inheritance. What's it? Inheritance?
And inheritance is something that comes later, And then.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
He says, skip down to verse's thirteen. In Him, you also,
when you heard the Word of truth and believed you
were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, the guarantee of
our inheritance until He comes to until we come to
a choir possession of it, to the praise of His glory.
The word seal is important because the word seal has
(44:20):
two meanings. Number one, in the Bible, the word seal
refers to a king's authority. When a king wanted to
seal something, it was to say. It was to say,
no one can break that who is under the authority
of this king. So when they bury Jesus in the grave,
what do they say the Pharisees comes, They put to Pilot.
They say, Pilot puts your seal on the grave, so
(44:41):
that no one can break the seal who is under
your authority. And then in Daniel chapter six, when they
threw Daniel into the lion's den, remember this, they said, Darius,
put your seal. The king put your seal on the
on the den, so that no one who is under
your authority can break the seal.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Well, I got good news for you. Let me tell
you how those stories ended.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
There's someone who is over the authority of Pilate, and
there's someone who's over the authority of Darius, and his
name is Jesus Christ, and he broke the seal because
he has the authority to break the.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
King's seals of this earth. But I got greater news
for you.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
That's you're sealed in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
And no one is.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
More powerful than the Holy Spirit, which means no one
can break the seal of God over your life, not
even you, not even you. And then there was a second,
the second illustration of that word in the Old Testament,
a seal in the ancient world. In antiquity, a seal
is actually referred to an engagement ring. So when you
(45:44):
think about a guy falls in love with the girl
and he puts an engagement ring on her finger, what
does that mean We're getting married?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Not today but soon?
Speaker 2 (45:55):
And then if you think about these young ladies, if
you are engaged, you ain't hiding that thing.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Ah, You're like, well, I don't know if I want
to let anybody know. You're like, hey, hey, hey, he proposed.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Prays right, because you know there's a day coming, you know,
no more lonely Valentine's days, no more boring Christmases. I
got somebody who loved me and chose me and made
me his own. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're a Christian,
(46:35):
if you're a child of the Moose, Hi God, you
got somebody who loves you and chose you to make
you his own. You got somebody who's preparing a wedding
feast for you. You got somebody who's gonna glorify you and.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Exhaust you and lift you up.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
You got somebody in the throne of heaven who's gonna
watch out for you and make you finish the race
of Jesus.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
His name is Christ. You got somebody. You got something
to look forward to.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
And every girl who's engaged does not bother going slumming
with dudes other than her man. She saves herself for
that wedding night. She doesn't go on match dot com.
She doesn't go on Christian mingle because she knows she's
(47:22):
no longer single. Christians don't go slumming. You're engaged to
the King of Heaven. You got a day coming. There's
a wedding feast being prepared for you. Sermon and a sentence.
The Father has destined us for a life of intimacy,
(47:46):
and the Son who saved us by the power of
the Holy Spirit, who roots us in the glorious hope
that awaits us. That's a mouthful, but that's good. What
was church about today? That's it. The Sun has destined
us for a life of intimacy, and the Son who
saved us by the power of the Holy Spirit, who
roots us, and the hope, the glorious hope that awaits us.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
And if you're not in Christ Jesus, I implore you
come and surrender your life.
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