What does it mean to be a set apart one? Does God recognize you as being set apart by Him?
"Who I Am In Paul's Introduction To Ephesus"
Ephesians 1:1-2 b
Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Please turn to Ephesians 1:1-2. We will be in Ephesians 1:1-2 in the preaching of God's word this morning. Last week we began looking at Ephesians as we opened up this great epistle to find some beautiful doctrinal truths that God has given us in the introduction. We learned some important facts about Paul the apostle. As we dug into God's precious word, we learned some important facts about who Paul was before He was saved. We saw that Paul's conversion experience, and induction into the ministry, was a sovereign act of God that was lovingly forced upon Paul in an authoritarian love while Paul had been kicking against, and resisting, God's goading. It started with God cosmically hurting Paul in a type of love that can best be described as forced upon someone. It is according to God's definition of love, where God struck Paul's eyes with His sovereign goad. God blinded Paul against Paul's will. But we also saw that it began way before that, as Paul says of God's predestinating determination,
"But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His unmerited favor, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, ..." Galatians 1:15-16
Then we saw what God said to Paul at the appointed moment Paul was wounded while fighting against the Messiah. We saw that Paul, as an enemy, was captured by the King of kings and Lord of lords, and drafted into service on the other side of the war. Paul, who was but seconds beforehand, Saul the anti-Christ, and Saul the Christian murderer, was amazingly, and almost unbelievably, now a commander in God's military. Folks, don't you think Paul understands grace, in experience, about as well as anyone can? Grace is the type of love that is undeserved favor, and Paul had the gift delivered to him in an amazing way. He knew he was undeserving, and he knew that for some divine reason (some huge God reason that is all wise, all perfect, and the only possible thing for God to do in the only possible world that exists) Paul is lovingly blinded in the midst of rejecting, hating, and persecuting Christ. Paul was not electing Christ, Christ was electing Paul as Paul says in this Ephesians letter, according to God's own good pleasure. God describes His election of Paul to the life-service that Paul "must" do in fulfilling God's predetermination, saying,
"This man is the instrument ..."
[Think tool in God's hands, which is you and me and all of God's elect. We are tools in His hands. The Lord says,]
"This man is the instrument I elected to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." Acts 9:15-16
Such amazing details make us pause to consider that God determines the salvation and service of men based completely upon His own wisdom, rightness, and understanding. Remember the first 11 words of Paul's opening,
"Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the determination of God ..."
Along with all of those wonderful things, we also saw God's hidden mystery purpose revealed at the proper time. We saw that Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, not only experienced the body of Christ, but was also in the body of Christ, and also preached the body of Christ--explaining it in amazing ways. It is the beautiful truth that you and I are the body of Christ, the church, where we are in the sphere of Christ, and Christ is in the sphere of us. This morning we continue to learn from our verse to verse expository preaching through Ephesians. Please prepare your hearts for the sacred preaching of God's word, in this sermon titled,
"Who I Am In Paul's Introduction To Ephesus" [prayer]
The letter of Ephesians is generally agreed by scholars to have been written with the purpose of being passed around among all the various churches in the province of Asia. What this means is that the letter was never meant to be kept and read solely among the church in the Ephesus region alone. It was meant to be a theological lesson book as a part of the circulation of what was the early, yet segmented Bible, that was meant to edify the wider New Covenant church. It is now in the completed, and bound Bible form that we have today. With this in mind, let us read the introduction and I want us to look at the designation that Paul is using concerning those he is addressing this letter to. I want you to look beyond the words of the destination being, "at Ephesus." This morning, we need to be more focused upon the description of the people. They are the people of each and every destination that this letter was meant to be read, copied, and preserved. More importantly, folks You need to be thinking that this letter is for you, and there are some wonderful things to learn here, so please read along with me now,
"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the determination of God, To the set apart ones [or the saints] who are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Ephesians 1:1-2
OK, notice that the letter is addressed to people who are,
A) set apart ones,
B) who are the faithful in Christ,
C) who have God as their Father,
and
D) who have Jesus Christ as their Lord, (Master).
As we take a look at these descriptive references, I want us to be thinking about our own selves. We are Christians in the legacy of Christians. We are actually connected to all those Christians of the past who are described by the terms Paul gives. They are the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ. They learned God's truths through Paul. In like manner, we are learning God's truths in the same way, from the very same letter that God designed for His glory, and the edification of His church.
/1/
So, in recognizing this, the first thing we are going to consider is what it means to be a saint. Paul says,
"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the determination of God, To the saints ..."
Particularly, I want us to consider what it means for us who are the true Christians of God's church, to be saints, because that is exactly what we are. We can learn a lot about ourselves as Christians from understanding the depth of why the New Testament writers use this one word. How many of you are familiar with the fact that the word, "saint" has taken on a private meaning among certain religious groups, primarily because of the influence of the Roman Catholic church? In the Roman Catholic church, you will not typically find that ordinary Christians are called saints. The reason is because the Roman Catholic papacy has applied its own anachronistic definition to the word by declaring that only people who have supposedly performed two miracles, or were martyred, or a combination of both of those things, is worthy to be called a saint. I'm not exactly sure why doing just one miracle is not enough to qualify someone to be a saint according to the papacy. It seems to me that if you can perform just one miracle, then you are probably in a category that transcends over 99.99 percent of all Christians throughout all history. It certainly seems strange, rather arbitrary, and a bit unfair to make the criteria that to attain some supposed sainthood you must perform two miracles, rather than one, especially since there is no scriptural basis for such a requirement in the first place. The same goes for being a martyr. This is unfortunate, because the misuse of the word saint, has become a problem in our day. The reason why it is a problem is because this beautiful word applies to all of God's elect under Christ's New Covenant. Christ is the one who performed the one miracle of your salvation in setting you apart, as a saint. Christ is the one who gave Himself as the one sacrificial martyr to secure your salvation in setting you apart, as a saint. When a group like the Roman Catholic church gets away from scripture and the basic meanings of words that were used by the early Christians to describe average, ordinary, typical Christian folks, people end up missing a lot of truth that God has given for understanding Christianity. Since the word that saint is translated from in the Greek literally means "those who are set apart," or "the set apart ones." We, average, ordinary, typical Christian folks, need to consider what it means to be a set apart one by relying upon scripture alone for our information. We need to think about this for a moment. If we Christians are set apart ones, then there are some implied facts about us that go along with being set apart. What I mean is that we need to know what makes one set apart, who it was exactly who set us apart, and what exactly we are set apart from. The answer is that God is the one who sets us apart, and God does this setting apart work by His sovereign will, by His Spirit, in His election to save us. The same God who set Paul apart from his mother's womb and then called Paul at the proper time, is the same God who sets any of us apart unto eternal spiritual salvation. We read Peter describing the process, and the result in 1 Peter, where He addresses the Christians, which are the saints, by calling them,
"... those ... who are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the setting apart [from the same Greek word used for saint] work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood:" 1 Peter 1:1-2
This is what happens with all who are truly eternally spiritually saved. God the Father, elects us. He elects us according to His foreknowledge of everything in His sovereign determination. He does this by setting us apart, which is the setting apart work of the Spirit. As His set apart ones, we are set apart to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood. The primary point is that when you were lost, you did not set yourself apart unto God in some false works based idea of salvation. God is the one who does the work of setting apart His elect. And, His work is that He set us apart from something, over to something else. What we are set apart from, is the lost dark culture of the world that is held in bondage to sin. God saved you by setting you apart from bondage to sin. What we are set apart to, is salvation in Christ in the New Covenant. I like the way our great transfer is described in the parallel letter to Ephesians, which is Colossians. Paul speaks of the Christians,
"12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the set apart ones [same Greek word] in Light. 13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Colossians 1:12-14
Being set apart is to partake in the great cosmic rescue, where we are transported from the domain of darkness over to the reign and rule of Christ. Our separateness is manifested in being in the church, which is called the body of Christ. We are there at this time, by grace through faith in the precious blood of Jesus, as we just sang this morning, and then later on after we die, we will be set apart forever in spotless glory. So, we need to keep in mind that as saints, we are God's set apart ones, and we are set apart from the world to be in the body of Christ, which leads us to
/2/
the second thing I want us to consider, and that is what it means to be "the faithful in Christ." Paul says,
"To the set apart ones who are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:"
The primary thing we need to get from this for our spiritual growth is that all of us who are saved are, in fact, faithful in Christ in one respect. Because we are saved, we are faithful in Christ. And another thing we need to learn from this, is that in our Christian walk we are to be faithful in Christ by being trustworthy concerning the things of Christ. Paul uses essentially the same phrase in his greeting to the Colossians, saying,
"... to the set apart ones [saints] and faithful brothers in Christ who are at Colossae:" Colossians 1:2
In Paul's application, he is talking about being trustworthy because of being in your position in Christ where you are identified with Christ as your salvation. Notice that Paul says that faithfulness is "in Christ." This means that when God sets someone apart in His son, He is also the one who makes them faithful. To be "the faithful" in the Biblical sense, can mean that you are either someone who has proven to be trustworthy, or you are someone who is a believer. We must realize that the term is used both ways in the scriptures. In this context, those who are faithful are the set apart ones. These are the people who have placed their trust in Christ alone as their Lord and Savior. This goes for you and me too. If you placed your trust in Christ as Lord and Savior, then you are faithful. Paul tells us later in chapter 2, that it is by grace, through faith that we are saved. In the same statement, Paul explains that this faith is a gift given to the elect from God. All of us who are set apart are believers, so all of us who are set apart are the faithful in Christ Jesus. We spent a whole year and a half talking about the Not Eternally Saved Theory, which amounts to the false doctrine of unsurety in insecurity. What we discovered is that when God makes us faithful unto, and in our salvation, we are eternally secure. It is by unmovable grace, through unmovable faith that we are saved. You can not, and do not, and you will not lose your saving faith, just as you can not, and do not lose God's saving grace. In fact, it was God's grace that brought us there in faithfulness in the first place. It is God's grace that sees us through, in faithfulness, for the rest of eternity. Once you are in Christ though, you are encouraged by God's same grace to be faithful in your Christian walk. What this means is that you are encouraged to be trustworthy in being obedient to commands and patterns that God has given you as the body, in the body, for the body of Christ; like not forsaking your assembling together as some who are unfaithful do, Hebrews 10:25. There are multitudes of Christians who are being unfaithful to Biblical assembly which is defined as having ruling elders and teaching elders according to 1 Timothy 3:15. God also wants us to be trustworthy in growing by learning and practicing the precepts of the word. We are set apart. We are faithful, so let's act faithfully. This means that since God has encouraged us be trustworthy in practicing our spiritual gifts for the edification of the rest of the body of Christ, then you do it. In faith, we are God's servants, and so we read in 1 Corinthians 4:2, that it is required of God's servants that we be found trustworthy. We are encouraged to be trustworthy in being a set apart witness to the world. We are encouraged to be trustworthy in being separated from the world culture in all of its false philosophies, erotic clothing styles, bad language, and humanistic themes, like we find in the typical Hollywood movie. As we do all of these faithfulness things, we reflect that faithfulness that we already have in salvation. In other words, when you are doing faithfulness things, then you are doing what you have already been set apart in the Covenant of your salvation to do. It is what you are supposed to do as Christian. That is what it means for you to be set apart and faithful in Christ.
/3/
The third thing we need to consider is what it means for us to have God as our Father. Paul goes on with his introduction and says,
"2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father ..." Ephesians 1:2
When Paul expresses this relationship as part of the identity of those he is addressing, Paul is not using some universal term like we might find from people who describe God as the great creator of us all, and so what they mean is that God is the Father of all humans. No, what Paul means is something that is only applied to those who are set apart and faithful in Christ; more particularly in being set apart in Christ in our positional-identification with Him as God's Son and first born heir. It is in Christ the Son, that we are made sons of God, which is beautiful because God really thinks of us as His children that he loves, nurtures, and cares for. When we read John describing this relationship, we recognize the great love our Father has for us in calling us His children. John says,
"See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; [He doesn't bestow that love on everyone] and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now [in salvation] we are children of God," 1 John 3:1-2
When you really do understand this, and you really grasp what this means from the pureness of what God has done for you in salvation, then it will change your life. It is really a great privilege to be a child of God. It is not something we become just because we decided to. Notice that John says that the great love action of being called God's child is something that is "bestowed on us." As in all the other actions we have been examining in Paul's opening address, having God as our Father is something that He sovereignly bestowed upon us. In a few more sentences Paul is going to say,
"He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His determination." Ephesians 1:5
Your adoption is His kind intention. Your adoption is His determination. Your adoption is what He predestined. In speaking of Israelites being redeemed through the New Covenant in Christ, Paul calls it receiving the adoption, saying,
"4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, 5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6 Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Daddy! Father!' 7 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God." Galatians 4:4-7
God is the one who did this great loving rescue of adopting a bunch of sinful, lost, wayward orphans out of the world; setting them apart in His Son. Listen, you and I really need to get the huge understanding that whenever we pray to our Father, it is because God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. It is the Spirit of the only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, that inspires us, to cry out "Daddy! Father!" Notice what Paul says about the same adopting action in Romans,
"... you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Daddy! Father!' 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ" Romans 8:15-17
It is only because of the work of the first born rightful heir, that we inherit all the spiritual blessings of our great privilege. Folks, the work of Christ is absolutely amazing when we look at every facet of what was planned, and then accomplished through the crucifixion and resurrection or our Lord.
/4/
This leads us now to the last descriptive comment of Paul that applies to us who are the set apart ones, and that is that Paul expresses what goes hand in hand with being faithful. What Paul says is that Christ is not only our Savior, (which is a great and beautiful truth to be relished and appreciated), and Paul is not only saying that Christ is the great Son that we identify with in positional glory as being crucified and risen with Him in our salvation, as Paul says in Galatians 2:20, and here and so many other places, (which is also a great and wonderful truth to be appreciated), but Christ is also our Lord. He says,
"2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Ephesians 1:1-2
At the fundamental practical level, what this means for us is is that Jesus is the One we obey. The word that the New Testament writers use to express that Jesus is Lord, is exactly the same word that is translated as Master. Actually, this is what the English word, "Lord," literally means. It means master. Christ is your Master. Since Christ is your Master, then you are His servant. I think that in our day, this particular identity of Christ and the relationship that we have with Him in it, is something that is greatly misunderstood. From my own experience as a pastor, I have seen that it is misunderstood, oddly enough, in two completely different ways:
(A)
One way is that there are Christians who consider the Lordship of Christ to be a valid part of who Christ is in terms of His Biblical title. They, as a matter of necessity, recognize the clear scriptural title that Christ has as King of kings and Lord of lords, but when it comes to actually recognizing that the Lordship of Christ means being obedient to His New Covenant scriptures for life and conduct, they start to push aside the actualness of what Christ being Lord really implies. It is an odd view of Christianity that I see a lot of nowadays. They begin to think that to be held to the scriptural standard that God has given His church for life and conduct is to be, what they call, "legalistic," or "graceless" or somehow wrong. These are amazing thoughts when we consider that such accusations are made by professed Christians concerning simple obedience to Christ as the Lord that He actually is. It is also an amazing demonstration of how clever our sinful, selfish, minds can be when it comes to wanting to live out our lives as if we are the Lord, rather than living life where God is Lord. Make no mistake about it, it is a manifestation of sin to label important New Covenant urgings for us all to be biblically accountable, to fight worldliness, to be holy in conduct, and to practice godliness, as being something negative, or wrong. It is a false escape hatch indeed when one calls the Lordship of Christ, "legalism." Rather than escape, it is sin, and it simply leads to more sin and bondage to a world culture that we are intended to be delivered from in our adoption--in our rescue. If not legalism, then often the Lordship of our Savior is merely pushed aside as just another opinion. An example of this type of thing would be seen in cheating on your tax forms, Or in lying about your age to get something. For example, when parents approve of their child lying about his or her age to be a member of a web-space on the internet. or, when you tell someone you are going to be somewhere and then you decide you are not really going to be there anyway. But this kind of deception happens, and it happens among God's elect. Worse, we are living in a time now in our own culture, when God's children who are seeking to obey the Lordship of Christ, and are seeking to minister the truth, try to speak out concerning these kinds of things, get slandered and called legalists, or called those who are trying to push their own views of the Lordship of Christ down the throats of other Christians. Though this type of thing is sad, we must not be worn out, and we must not turn our heads away in trying to ignore the malady. We must be constantly aware that this type of thing is really a horrible trend in our postmodern culture today. In other words, we must remain biblical.
(B)
On the other extreme end, the Lordship of Christ is being touted as a way of defending a lot of practices that are not New Testament urgings for holiness and godliness. There are whole denominations that build their main doctrinal thrusts on Old Covenant teachings and extra-biblical mandates. The Seventh Day Adventist organization does this by claiming that to be obeying the Lordship of Christ, all Christians must meet together and worship on the Old Covenant Jewish Sabbath day which occurs from Friday evening up to Saturday evening. This type of teaching is not the Lordship of Christ. It is the error of the Judaizers of the Old Covenant who Paul the apostle battled at every front. Further, it is teaching that is based upon bad exegetical skills in reading and understanding the New Testament. Some churches forbid using music instruments along with singing songs of praise and worship. Such a stance is considered to be following the Lordship of Christ. They have no New Testament mandate against using musical instruments, but they wrongly think that to use them is some sort of abomination. Often we find the traditions of men being touted as obedience to the Lordship of Christ. Some people think that if you start eating a meal before saying a ritual prayer, then you are not obeying the Lordship of Christ. Praying before meals is a good thing, but it is not something that we are required to do as Christians. Some people think that if you are not using an English version of the Bible that was dedicated in antiquity to King James of England in 1611, then you are not obeying the Lordship of Christ. Reading the King James Version is not something that the Lord says He requires for us to do as Christians. There are a lot of things like this that are equated with true obedience but they are only traditions of men. But the extremes do not stop the fact that Christ is Lord, and this fact is the point that we want to dwell upon in nurturing our spiritual growth as those who God our Father has set apart in Christ.
As I end this sermon this morning I want us to leave with the sense of wonder and majesty of Christ as our Lord. Being Lord is Christ's state of being. Being Lord is His glory. It is His honor as God manifested in bodily form. We need to get the deep, sacred sense of this wonderful Lord of ours, who came to be bloodied in mocking ridicule. In His own obedience to the will of the Father, He went. He went. He was taken to the hill of execution to be impaled, to suffer both pain and shame, and then to die. But He is Lord. As the old hymn state so well: He is risen from the dead and He is Lord. Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Why? Because being Lord is His exaltation. It is His glory.
"It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thessalonians 2:14
It is His glory. He is,
"... the Lord of glory;" 1 Corinthians 2:8
In 2 Thessalonians, we read that all who reject Christ,
"... will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power," 2 Thessalonians 1:9
The glory of the Lord is the focus of Peter's praise in 2 Peter,
".. grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen." 2 Peter 3:18
As Lord, He deserves the glory,
9... God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:9-11
Please listen to me very carefully; what we think as Christians concerning the Lordship of Christ, and how we act as Christians in respect to the Lordship of Christ, is a barometer of how much we respect our Savior, glorify our God, and truly understand the exaltation that our Lord deserves. What our attitude about serving Christ according to the Bible really is, serves as a demonstration of how trivial, or how all consuming, we have understood and treated our salvation. It is a horrible spot and blemish on the body of Christ in our generation when any of us take lightly the glory of our God in Christ as Lord. To do so is not normal Christianity. It is aberrant Christianity that needs to be repented from. Paul, who wrote Ephesians from Prison, took the Lordship of Christ in all His glory very, very seriously. Paul had the big picture constantly and relentlessly on his mind. The glory of His Lord consumed Him each and every day. Paul was gladly imprisoned for the glory of the Lordship of Christ. Paul was gladly executed (beheaded) for the glory of the Lordship of Christ. Bridgeway, I urge you to recognize that if your Christianity is not ruled by an overwhelming sense of Christ's magnificence and glory as your sovereign Lord, then you are leading a life of deficient Christianity. Your Christianity is mediocre, and you are reaping the deficient fruit of the mediocre seed you are planting. There is no in between state. You are either glorifying yourself and the culture you live in as that which is lord of your life, or you are glorifying Christ Jesus as Lord of your life. I'll repeat that for clarity, either you are glorifying Christ as Lord of your life, or you are glorifying yourself and the culture of this lost, dying, sinful, deceived world. In sorrow, as we look at the Christianity of our contemporary world, it so painfully obvious that it is not marked by being in love with the glory of Christ in His Lordship. Folks, we desperately need to fall in love with Christ, as, not just the guy that got us off the hook of eternal damnation, but we desperately need to fall in love with Christ as Lord. Our salvation is much more than getting off the hook, because in saving us from damnation in the manner that our God has done, He has done so for His own self, yes, for His own good pride filled self exaltation. Yes, there is good pride, and God is the one who expresses His own good pride in that He seeks to receive all the glory. Further, He deserves all the glory. If you do not like the sound of that, then you are a symptom of our mediocre culture that does not understand the glory of the Lord. Paul reveals to us here in Ephesians that we are saved so that we would praise the glory of God's grace in Christ,
"5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
[why?--that is the big question, and so Paul says why; he says that God predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will. He doesn't say that God saved us according to the kind intention of our will. But he saved us unto something. It is,]
"6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Loved One." Ephesians 1:5-6
The "loved one" that Paul is talking about, is Christ Jesus our Lord. It is your destiny to praise the glory of God's precious grace. We do this by recognizing that God's grace is expressed in the Lordship of Christ. We need to realize this, but unfortunately, many of us do not. How many of you realize that God's grace is expressed in Christ being your boss? Whereas some wrongly equate Lordship with legalism, God equates Lordship with His grace. The biggest demonstration of this fact is that Christ as Lord, acts according to His authority in ordaining His grace. Without the authority to do so as Lord, there would be no grace bestowed on you. This is so important for us this morning. We are about to finish but we need to get this grace connection to the Lordship of Christ. It will only take a few more minutes. We get a glimpse of it in John 6, where we read,
"27 Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal. 28 Therefore they said to Him, 'What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?' 29 Jesus answered and said to them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.'" John 6:27-28
How important it is to remember that when we first believed in our Lord, it was our first act of obedience to His Lordship in working the work of God. But, even more important to remember is that in his Lordship, Christ as the eternal Son, who is God manifested in bodily form, ordained and enabled all who believe in Him to believe in Him as a work of obedience, in that to do so is "the work of God."
This is grace. This is Lordship. This is His glory. Paul repeats this fact which brings nothing but glory to God and His grace, when He says in a few more points here in Ephesians,
"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus ..." Ephesians 2:8
Paul is saying that the grace that saves us, the salvation itself, and the faith that we are saved through, are all three gifts from God. We give ourselves none of them, and we generate none of them on our own, and none of them are a result of our own works. Christ takes away any credit from man for any of those three: grace, salvation, and the faith through which you have been saved. This leaves no room for boasting in anything but the glory of the Lord. But listen, it only gets better because we have been saved to glorify God, and the great privilege of His grace in saving us, is that we gain the glory of our Lord as we are the blessed ones who partake in Him forever and ever, as we read,
"It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thessalonians 2:14
Folks, what more can you want? I encourage you to fall in love with the glory of the Lord. The glory of the Lord is worshipped in our obedience to Him. Every time you obey your Lord, you demonstrate His glory as King of kings and Lord of lords. You demonstrate that His grace is beyond any earthly price that we can put upon it. The only thing that could put a price on such a precious grace is the life of the Lord of glory. Serve Him. Serve God at work, at school, and at home, as those separated by Him, in the Lord, for His purpose. Serve God as your Father, at work, at school, and at home, as those who were adopted in the Lord for His purpose. I encourage you to make a difference in your own generation, and be about the task of reflecting the glory of the Lord to everyone around you as tools--as instruments in His sovereign hands.
