TD Jakes - The Gift of God
We’re going to the book of Ephesians, so run over to chapter number two. There, we’re going to delve into the Word of God. When we go into the Word of God tonight, I believe that it will accomplish great things within us. So get ready to be blessed! We’ll be in the second chapter of Ephesians. I have my old, trusty, faithful, worn-out, raggedy Bible here; the pages are all tattered and torn, and I’ve got notes scribbled all over them. It looks a mess, but it’s my Bible, and I love it. Every now and then, I step away from the iPads and other devices and go back to the book simply because I enjoy holding it in my hand.
I’m going to Ephesians 2, which says: «And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversations in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.»
In reading the Word, I covered verses 1 through 10, but I want to talk about the gift of God. Father, sanctify the Word of God in our hearts and spirits, that we might grow, be edified, and be strengthened by it while it is yet being preached. I thank you for what you’re going to do in Jesus' name. Amen.
Now let’s get busy. We’re in the book of Ephesians, which is written to the church at Ephesus by the Apostle Paul. It’s important for you to understand that Paul comes from an orthodox Jewish background; he’s from the tribe of Benjamin, was part of the Sanhedrin court, and was a Pharisee—a law keeper. At one point, he was a Christian killer because he saw Christianity as a cult and tried to destroy it until he had his encounter on the road to Damascus that changed his life. He started out ministering to the Jews and then ultimately began to see more impact among the Gentiles. Little by little, the church crossed the line, moving from Jerusalem into areas populated by Gentiles, like Ephesus, which, by this time, was a cosmopolitan city filled with all types of people.
Ephesus has existed for thousands of years but has become extremely cosmopolitan in recent days because it is the gateway to Asia, located between that and Jerusalem. There’s a lot of trade because it’s on the coast, and people from various places come in and out. It reminds me of being in Cape Town, where you might walk past one person speaking English, another speaking Swahili, and another speaking Dutch. You’ll encounter all kinds of people because it’s a cosmopolitan city with a great deal of diversity—not only in language and ethnicity but also theologically. There are many different ideas coexisting in the same city.
Paul labors in Ephesus to correct the course theologically and to evangelize, as much as possible, as many people as he can convert to Christianity. He finds considerable success in Ephesus, laboring here for nearly three years—praying, teaching, ministering, and tearing down idols, moving people away from the worship of Diana and other gods, and causing them to encounter Jesus Christ. It’s important to understand this because for Paul—who has such a deep, rich Jewish history—it is shocking to see Gentiles filled with the Spirit, praising God in different languages, being baptized in His name, and walking in the fullness of the Spirit.
This is almost unbelievable for him because their background isn’t like his. Sometimes, God sends you to people whose backgrounds are quite different from your own. Being a bit pious, it is shocking for him to witness the exceeding riches of God’s grace. When Paul discusses the exceeding riches of His grace, he refers to the lavishness with which God overlooks their infidelity to His way, His word, and His truth; their polygamous ideologies, their idolatrous ways, and their promiscuity. There are so many things about them that you would never think they could be included in the plan of God.
In the second chapter, which I would love to cover in more depth, he starts out saying, «And you hath he quickened.» The word «quicken» in the King James Version means «made alive.» «And you hath he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.» This does not mean it’s like «Night of the Living Dead,» and there are people walking around like corpses; they were spiritually dead. What does «dead» mean in the Bible? Death in the Bible never means the cessation of life. It always means separation. So whether you’re discussing physical death—when the spirit separates from the body—or spiritual death—when our spirits are separated from God—it is always indicating separation.
«And you hath he quickened"—made alive, reconnected—"who were dead, separated, in the trespasses and sins.» He reminds them of their background not because he is messy or a hater, nor is he trying to bring up their past; instead, he’s emphasizing the humility from which true worship is born. True worship is not born simply because God gives us things; it is born when we recognize our unworthiness of the blessings He bestows upon us out of His goodness, not our own.
This acknowledgment causes us to be grateful, appreciative, and thankful, leading us to honor God more readily because we owe such a debt. There’s no question that we didn’t earn this; it’s all about Him and not at all about us. Paul, talking to the Gentiles, acknowledges this truth, including everyone. He says, «In times past, we all walked according to the god of this world.» He includes everybody. I told you it’s cosmopolitan; there were Jews and Gentiles present.
But at some point in life, we all… I want you to hear this so that no one escapes. He says, «In times past, ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air"—that’s Satan—the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. «Among whom also we all had our conversations"—which means lifestyles—"in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.» By nature, we were the children of wrath, even as others.
Today, there’s a lot of discussion about what’s natural and what’s not. Sin is natural to us; we are born in sin and shaped in iniquity. This brings a lot of confusion, as we live in an era today where whatever feels natural to you is seen as licensed to do it. But in Christianity, we are going against the natural to pursue the spiritual. This is why we have to repent. The word «repent,» or «metanoia» in Greek, means to turn around and go in the other direction.
In times past, we walked according to our flesh. «According to» is a musical term, meaning in harmony; whatever the flesh desires, the flesh gets. Whatever comes to our minds, we chase after it. We walked according to all of that, but now, in these last days, we’ve made a U-turn and aim to walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh. Moreover, we’re striving to move away from our past and our history toward our destiny. We resist the gravitational pull we all feel to live life at its lowest point. If I jump in the air, I will fall back to the ground, reaching the lowest point allowed by gravity.
I mention this tonight because some of you feel that pull, and you’re trying to control how low you go, but you can’t control it. The pull is so strong that without any obstruction, you’d keep going lower and lower until you find yourself in the abyss—afflicted by the depravity of the human spirit. Paul concludes that everyone is included, regardless of their point of view, perspective, or socioeconomic standing. There were different socioeconomic levels in Ephesus, to be sure; it was a wealthy city.
However, there was a caste system present; people were comfortable with the wealthy staying wealthy and the poor remaining in poverty, believing whatever you were born into was what you should remain in. But Paul does not change the rules for the rich and apply different rules for the poor. He includes them all in the same melting pot of flawed humanity—the stench of our flesh, the lust of our flesh, and the depravity of our minds.
The creativity by which we innovate ways to descend lower is natural to humanity. It is foolish for us to talk to sinners about living right because they’re not living wrong; they’re living naturally, doing what is instinctual to them. What we, as Christians, are supposed to do is move in the opposite direction toward the spiritual. If we sow to the flesh, we will reap corruption, but if we sow to the Spirit, we shall reap life. This is a constant, conscious decision that we fight to uphold every day.
That’s what the fight is about. The Bible says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds—things that have a stronghold on you. Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ. Do you do that once and finish? Absolutely not! You do that on Monday and then you have to pull again on Tuesday, and you may have to wrestle on Wednesday. You may even have to wrestle during lunch and throughout Thursday morning, Friday, Saturday, and all day Sunday. Yes, even Sunday, too. The enemy will still be trying to pull you down—not necessarily into lust or sexual depravity, but also into depression, fear, low self-esteem, doubt, arrogance, prejudice, or pride.
There is always something pulling you down. On one hand, you’ve got the enemy trying to drag you into the flesh, and on the other hand, the Holy Spirit is drawing you closer to Christ. We find ourselves caught in the struggle. As Paul puts it, «When I would do good, evil is present with me. That which I would not, I do; and that which I do, I do not. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?» I constantly feel that pull.
I find, then, a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. All of this is common. We don’t talk about it, but it’s common. Some of us act as if we’re exempt from it, but the reality is that this struggle is common to all. When are we going to realize that we should stop being shocked? This is common to humanity; it is part of the human experience. I want you to see this because I think it’s important.
In your understanding, he says that we were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Think about that for a minute. When something is natural to you, you don’t think it’s bad. It’s natural to eat; you don’t think that’s wrong. It’s natural to get thirsty. Anything that you deem natural, you don’t think is bad. The struggle we have is intense because not only are we wrestling against it, but we are also wrestling against the permission we give it to become our norm. To become a Christian is to resist what is normal for you and to go in a direction like loving your enemies. That’s not normal. Doing good to those who despitefully use you—that’s not normal. A soft answer turns away wrath; that’s not normal.
When someone says something hateful and nasty to you, it’s not normal to want to say, «Oh, God bless you, praise God.» Not for me, maybe, but according to this Bible, that’s not normal at all. You want to get them together, get them straight, but the Bible says to resist the gravitational pull to go down the rabbit hole with someone who is talking to you from their nature and to allow the Holy Spirit to elevate the conversation. As Michelle Obama says, when they go low, we go high. Learning to go in the opposite direction is something we work on every day, with varying degrees of success. We have not mastered it; we are not finished. We’re not complete; we are under construction. This is an ongoing process. While we understand that, and it’s important that we do, we must not use this understanding as a license to lie with the swine.
When the prodigal son comes to the hog pen, it is natural for the pig to be in the mud and eat the slop, but it is not natural for him to do that. He has to resist that. So we can’t use the fact that everybody is doing it. It’s calming; the man says «You cursed me, I’ll curse you right back.» We can’t say, «Well, you know, the Bible already knew it was our nature to be like that. That’s why He quickened you; that’s why He made you alive; that’s why He filled you with the Spirit so that you would have an alternative force pulling you toward good, that would reprimand you when you do wrong, that would convict you.»
One of the greatest signs of being a Christian is not dancing; it’s not speaking in tongues. The enemy can imitate all of that. It’s not being able to shout or knowing all the gospel songs; the enemy can out-sing everybody. It’s none of that. Conviction is a sure sign of conversion. Write that down: conviction is a sure sign of conversion. When you can do anything you want and never get convicted, I doubt that you were ever converted. Because if you are ever converted, it’s not that you can’t do wrong, but there is a conviction that makes it stressful when you’re in sin. Some of you listening right now are absolutely born-again Christians; your life doesn’t reflect it, but you are absolutely born again. You are stressed out, and you’re stressed all the time.
The reason you’re stressed all the time is that you are convicted. You can play it off, say, «I’m okay,» but it’s coming out in how you sleep, how you eat, how you can’t sleep, how you overeat, or how you don’t eat. This is conviction. You’re short and snapping at people; you’re always justifying yourself, always defending yourself. Your personality is disoriented because you are at war. Do you know that, people? You’re at war. God gave you a gift that put you at war before He gave you the gift of God, as Paul calls it, the gift of God. You weren’t at war; whatever flesh wanted, flesh got—no fight, no resistance, no pull in the other direction. But now you’re at war because you’re pulled between two different things all the time. You’re struggling.
Sometimes, depending on when I catch you, you might be more victorious than at other times because there is conflict. And the very fact that there is conflict creates conviction. The conflict creates conviction. If there were no conflict, there would be no conviction. There would be neither conflict nor conviction if there were not conversion. So we understand conversion. What does conversion mean? Conversion means I converted; I turned in the other direction. I’m a convert. That’s conversion. Now, when the convert tries to divert back to his old ways, it creates a conflict because it was natural. But now there’s a spiritual man in there groaning, «Oh, you know better than that! Oh, why do you keep making the same mistake?»
All of that creates conviction; and that conviction has a conflict because you used to like it. It was natural; it was all good. It still feels good, but it also feels bad because if you have truly been converted… If you want to do a conversion test on yourself right now, do a conviction test. Revival breaks out in the church not because you have a well-known speaker and a packed house with a good choir. Revival never occurs where there is no conviction. Revival occurs when people who have been in conflict come running to the altar out of conviction. That’s how you know you’re in revival. When all of a sudden you say, «Enough is enough! I’m going to turn in another direction!»
This is so true in Ephesus because Ephesus is like Sodom and Gomorrah; it’s full of everything—all kinds of sin, all kinds of idolatry, murders, killings, and sacrifices—and all kinds of obnoxious things that stink in the nostrils of God. But God has come in and converted the people in Ephesus. Now the religious people are shocked that these individuals, who have no background in worshiping Jehovah, are now not only worshiping Jehovah but His Son, Jesus Christ, in such a way that it shocks the disciples. They are making more headway dealing with people who have deep, dark sin than those who are religious, pious, and sanctimonious, who keep the law and abstain from eating meat, washing their hands, and honoring all the rules that create piety and self-righteousness.
Now God has come along, and revival has fallen upon some of the filthiest people they knew. Imagine that! Some of the filthiest people they knew are now lifting their hands in the sanctuary and worshiping God. Paul says, «God has quickened you; He’s brought you back to life again; He’s reconciled you back to Himself.» The breach has been reconnected. Everything about salvation has redeemed, restored, and revived; it’s all about connecting the breach that was broken. Do you feel the connection tonight? Do you feel connected back to Him tonight? In all likelihood, you probably do. You wouldn’t be watching this Bible class. You either feel it, or you want to feel it, or your soul needs to feel it, or you wouldn’t be on a Wednesday night watching a Bible class.
Do you feel the connection? Are you connected back to God again? If you want to test whether you feel the connection, tell me about the conviction because if you are feeling conviction, it’s a sign of connection. Salvation is a gift that has been given to them, but with that gift comes responsibility. Just as I give you a car, you still need gas, oil, a tune-up, and you have to change and rotate the tires from time to time. Just because something is free doesn’t mean it comes without responsibility. It is the gift of God; Jesus Christ is the gift of God that has been given to you, but with that gift comes certain maintenance, certain responsibility—certain things that need to be done in order for you to enjoy it to its fullest capacity.
Yes, you can keep going without changing the oil or the tires, but eventually, you’re going to break down and end up on the side of the road with smoke and a blown engine because you did not maintain what had been given to you. But I am persuaded better things of you because anybody who’s watching Bible class on a Wednesday night is doing maintenance. Anyone shedding tears and saying, «God, I’m sorry;» they’re changing oil. Anyone lifting their hands and saying, «You know what? I’m not going to say what I was going to say, or call who I was going to call, or flip out on who I was going to flip out on"—they’re doing maintenance on the gift of God. The person who can do anything they want to do, and still speak in tongues, shout, and rejoice, yet never feel conviction might not have been converted in the first place.
A sheep and a pig can both fall in the mud. The pig, when he falls in the mud, wallows because that’s natural for him. He flips over on his back, rolls around, and isn’t happy until he’s completely muddy because the mud feels natural to him. The sheep, when he falls into the mud, cries like the lost sheep from the ninety-nine. They can both do the same thing, but they have different reactions because for one, it’s natural; and to the other, there’s something in them that says, «You’re not supposed to be here!»
Let me talk just a moment to somebody who’s somewhere you’re not supposed to be. I know that feeling; I personally know that feeling very well. You don’t live this long without falling into the mud, and no matter what you tell yourself, how you rationalize yourself, how you justify yourself, or how you blame others—it’s still not natural for you, and that’s why you feel conflicted. I’m all for therapy and counseling, and I support it all. But a lot of times, we’re trying to counsel away conviction. No matter whose couch you sit on and however your potty training went or how you felt about your grandmother, if you’re convicted, the easiest way to remove the conviction is to repent. You might cry about it all the time, but that’s not repentance.
Repentance has nothing to do with tears; it has to do with turning around. When you turn around and go in the other direction, the conviction will ease. I feel like I’m talking to somebody; I don’t know who you are, but this is good. Paul, in verse three, brings us to the reality that we all have the same problem. We all had our conversations in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh—not just having the desires, but we acted on them; of the mind, we were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
But God… this «but» is a turning point in verse four. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us—that’s the thing that got us. He loved us. He loved us dirty. He loved us wretched. He loved us in the hotel room; He loved us at the casino table; He loved us half-drunk; He loved us with the needle in our arm; He loved us in the jail cell; He loved us at the crime scene; He loved us in our chaos; He loved us amid our domestic violence. He does not wait until you get better to love you. I know that frustrates you because that means that sometimes God loves people you don’t even like. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ. By grace, you are saved. He has quickened us together with Christ.
Now I want to emphasize that «us.» He has quickened us together with Christ. This separates Old Testament theology from New Testament theology. There was a «us» and a «them.» The «us» were the Jews, and the «them» were the Gentiles. Now, by the time we get to the book of Ephesians, He has quickened us together in Christ. The Jew and the Gentile come through the same door and become «us,» not «we» and «them.» Instead, we have become «us.» He has quickened us together. Stop right there; do you know how amazing that statement is? He has quickened us together with people that the Jews didn’t even eat with. The woman at the well said, «You know your people and our people; we don’t have any dealings with each other.»
She was a Samaritan. To eat with a Gentile in biblical days meant you’d break the plate. And now God has quickened us together. This is good! But God! I want you to get this: But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love, wherein He has loved us, even when we were dead in sin, has quickened us together with Christ. So read that like «has quickened us together,» and then add «with Christ.» By grace, you are saved. All of a sudden, people who didn’t speak to each other, didn’t live with each other, didn’t talk to each other, didn’t marry each other, and didn’t even eat with each other have been made alive together with Christ, and then he says, «By grace, you are saved.»
This is just as shocking to the Jew as it is to the Gentile because the Jew is used to thinking that he is saved by keeping the law. Paul says, «By grace you are saved,» later adding, «not by works, lest any man should boast.» By grace you are saved. Oh, I’m not saved because I didn’t take my mule out on the farm on Saturday. No, no, no, he says, «By grace ye are saved.» Then he looks at the Gentile, who has been involved in orgies, idolatry, murder, and all types of debauchery. He says, «By grace, yes, the same grace thrown in both directions: grace to the law keeper, grace to the lawbreaker. By grace you are saved.» He brought them to one place and united them so that the Jew stands right beside the Gentile, saying one thing: «To God be the glory! To God be the glory! To God be the glory for the things He has done!»
Not the things I have done, nor the things you have done, but for the things He has done; He has saved me with His arm; He has saved me. Then He goes even deeper. This is good. Stay with me; don’t go anywhere. Verse six is where it really gets good. Don’t move! It’s one thing to quicken us together with Christ, and it’s another thing in verse six as He now elevates the theology beyond togetherness, unity, and fellowship in the grace of God. He escalates it by saying, «And hath raised us up together.» He raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It’s one thing to quicken me; it’s another thing to raise me. He has raised us up together and made us sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Did you know we’re seated in heavenly places? Maybe that’s why God has you watching right now. All your prayer is about earthly places, and maybe God has you watching tonight to remind you that all this stuff down here—you’re not even really here. You are raised up and sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That’s why you have peace that passes all understanding. That’s why you have a joy that is unspeakable. That’s why you have the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, ebbing through the carnality. Because you have been raised up to sit with Christ in heavenly places, the Jew and the Gentile together—that’s us! He has raised us up together. Later on, He will call us «one new man.» He has made of the two one new man. He has tied us together and made us one new man in Christ.
The church is a new thing; it’s not quite Gentile, and it’s not quite Jew. The church is a new thing that God has done. If you read Ephesians all the way through, this will light up your life. «Quicken us together in Christ Jesus.» «By grace ye are saved.» This is the gift of God. God is extending to you a gift. If I give you a gift, you don’t have to send a payment—you don’t owe me anything for it. It is the gift of God. You may appreciate me for it, you may honor me for it, you may even give me something in return, but you could never pay for it because it was a gift. You could never pay for salvation—not with your acts of kindness, not with your deeds of service, not even with your tithes and offerings. You’re not paying for salvation. When God got ready to pay for salvation, He did it with His Son on the cross, who paid for salvation.
Now, I know this is kind of elementary stuff, but this basic foundational truth has escaped the church. We don’t know who we are. We don’t know whom to say amen to. We say amen to everything. We say amen to Christian theology, and then in the same breath, we say amen to ancient religions and odd doctrines and doctrines of men as long as it’s positive. We say amen to it as long as it sounds good; we have itching ears. Anything that sounds good to our ears, we respond to it. It’s because we don’t understand the fundamentals. That’s why you have to go beyond Sunday morning. That’s why you need Wednesday night Bible class so that you can get firm in understanding what it means to be a Christian. It’s not because you sit on the front row with your legs crossed; it’s not because you know all the songs or that you can dance and shout all over the church. No, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
That’s what God is doing for us tonight. Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it exciting to get a clear understanding of what God has done for you? So you can be more than these superficial Christians who are only thanking God because of their Christian liberties. They’re going out of business, and you got them for 50% off. Glory to God! Hallelujah! I’ve been praying about it! I got my shoes! Really? You think Jesus died for you to get some Christian lubricants or any other kind of shoes? I’m not trying to pick on them. I’m not saying you can’t work; I’m just saying that Jesus didn’t die for you to acquire stuff. Jesus died so that you might have eternal life and that you might have that life more abundantly. And we don’t get it anymore, but it used to be that people were thanking God because they were saved. They were shouting because they were saved. They were shouting because they were set free!
Now we have a lot of people shouting because they closed on their house, or they shouted because they got a new car and didn’t have to pay anything down, or they’re shouting because they got a promotion at work. Nothing wrong with being thankful about those sorts of things; I’m not against that, but the biggest thing you ought to be shouting about is the gift of God, which is salvation, which has been imputed to you. Righteousness has been imputed to you. He knew you weren’t righteous while you were yet in sin. God commended His love toward us, the Bible said, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He didn’t wait till we got it together! No, no, no, no, no! To those of you who are saying, «As soon as I get it together, I’m going to be a Christian. I’m going to come in; I’m going to be real, I’m not going to be like those church people.»
No, you don’t understand; God commended His love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us! I want that to sink into your spirit; I want that to get into your heart because this is the basic understanding of Christianity that every believer needs to know. If we knew this, a lot of the problems and a lot of the false teachings that are running amok in the world today would just go right past us because it wouldn’t pass the sniff test. If we really knew this, and it’s a failure on the leadership if we don’t teach this. The Bible said that He did it, «that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ.»
He did it for the future, that in the ages to come, He could look at us and say, «See how gracious I am? I saved her! You have no idea what she did; you have no idea where he came from, but my grace was stronger than their grit. My grace was so much stronger that it overcame even the pull—the gravitational pull—that was pulling them down. When I met him, he was suicidal; look at him clapping his hands, dancing all over the church, praising God and rejoicing! „That in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace!“ That’s why He did it! That’s why He did it—to display openly His ability to forgive the unforgivable, to love the unlovable, to reach the unreachable, to touch the untouchable. That’s what Christ did for you.
If I’m talking to someone tonight, and you’ve been walking around now, you’ve been depressed about things—and I admit these are depressing times. A lot’s going on; we have a lot of confusion, a lot of chaos, a lot of death, a lot of sickness, a lot of job loss, a lot of things—and you’ve been worried about all of that stuff. Maybe God brought you here tonight so you’d have something to rejoice about. You have something that the stock market can’t take, that the 401(k) can’t take, that your boss can’t take, that your husband leaving can’t take. You have something that racism can’t take, that pride can’t take; you have something that’s so rich and so full, the witch can’t take it, the root worker can’t take it, the dust swords can’t take it away. You have the gift of God that He has given to you in your earthen vessel, in your human body. You’re walking around with the gift of God inside of you!
Now why has your countenance fallen? Why is your soul heavy and your head hanging down about all this stuff? You’re going to leave anyway! You’re going to leave your house; you’re going to leave your car. Somebody else is going to drive it; someone’s going to wear your clothes. I know you don’t like to think about it, but somebody’s going to be sleeping in your bed. Before you know it, it’s only a matter of time before another family is going to be living in that house! Are you all upset about that and giving no thought to the preciousness of the gift that you have in Christ? Paul is drilling this into the heads of the church at Ephesus so that they will have a sound foundation.
Later, he says in the same book, „Or it might be, after my departure, grievous wolves will come in, not sparing the flock of God.“ He knows that there are going to be false teachers; „From among your own selves shall arise false teachers with perverse teaching.“ He knows all that’s coming, and because he knows it’s coming, he wants to make sure that he has established them in the faith strong enough to withstand the lies. We’re living in a time right now that you can hardly tell the truth from a lie. People are just carried away right now with anything they read on the internet. They take it, they just run with it, get in fights over it, kill people over it, shoot people over it; they don’t know it’s just something they read. The only way to defeat the false is with the truth, not with the God but with the truth.
So Paul is attacking them with truth so that they might have an understanding that God is proud of how far He has brought you—that God wants to show you off in the ages to come, to say, „See that woman right there? Look what I did in her life! See that young man right there? The one that was raised without a father, the one whose mother didn’t even want him. See what I did in his life? He should have been a statistic! He should have lost his mind, should have had a nervous breakdown, should have thrown in the towel; but by grace, by grace you are saved!“ It is the gift of God—oh, what an amazing gift!
I’m almost finished. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. God is working on you—not the bishop. God is shaping this and cutting off that, sanding this part right here and meshing these things together and shaping you out, rounding off rough edges, staining what needs to be stained and covering what needs to be covered. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that amazing? Somewhere you should get a t-shirt that says, „Made by God!“ Because you are His workmanship created in Christ. Anyone who does a lot of work on something wants to show it off. If you cook a good dinner, you want to show it off. If you build a nice house, you want to show it off. If you sit down and sew a nice skirt, you want to wear it; you want to show it off. You don’t make a nice skirt and then just hang it in the closet because you want to show off your workmanship.
God said, „You are my workmanship; I’ve been working on you all your life.“ I was working on you when you didn’t even know I was working on you. I was working on you when you were still in the clubs, still in the streets, and stealing yourself. I was working on you through all those failed relationships and things that didn’t work out. I was working on you, showing you over and over and over again, „Don’t fall into that same mud again; get up!“ And now you’re finally listening to me, and you’re finally growing, and you are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. This is good. This is so good! I don’t know if it’s blessing you, but it’s blessing me! Now He says that He’s going to show us off in the ages to come in verse 7—the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. „For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.“ „For by grace are ye saved through faith.“
And that faith isn’t even yours! „And that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God—not of works—not of works, not of keeping up days and abstaining from meats, and all of the things that went along with the law!“ This was shocking to the Jews: „Not of works, lest any man should boast.“ You have nothing to boast in except for Jesus Christ, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath… Now check this out; this is where it gets really good. God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. In other words, God preordained it before, and then over time He manifested it, that we should in the future be presented. So, this is not a knee-jerk reaction that God did off the top of His head. He told Jeremiah, „Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; I ordained thee, and I had sanctified thee to be a prophet unto the nations.“
God had before ordained, before your mama met your grandmama, before your mama met your daddy, before your granddaddy met your grandma, God had before ordained you to come into the light of who He was. He did it in eternity; it manifested in time. That in the ages to come, which is the future, He could show what He had started before you got here. Look at the plan of God, how consistent it is, how long-term it is, how He strategized.
Before you were born, God was planning for David when Ruth was still in Moab, married to Naomi’s son who died. God was planning for David; He allowed Naomi’s son to die, and for Ruth to end up going back with her mother-in-law to Bethlehem, so that she would give birth in Bethlehem, where Jesus would later be born, to a son named Obed. That was a result of a union between her and Boaz. Obed would grow up and have a son named Jesse, and Jesse would grow up and have a son named David. All of this would happen out of Bethlehem, so that thousands of years later, He would come to a virgin named Mary, and Mary would be with child, and they would journey to Bethlehem and be born in a manger.
Look at how many thousands of years God’s word is solid and plain! The problem with us is we want immediate answers from a long-term God. We want to understand right now. Naomi wanted to understand right then why she lost her son. She lost both her sons in Moab. In her entire lifetime, she never got a clear answer. But in the ages to come, you begin to see that Romans 8:28 is true: all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord. Are you going through something right now and you want answers? It doesn’t seem fair, it doesn’t seem right; you’re upset with God because you want immediate answers from a long-term God. Be still and trust Him, that all things will work together for your good.
I want to stop and pray for people who are suffering from not understanding why things didn’t go the way you planned them. And I want you to understand the reason that things did not go the way you planned them is because they went the way God planned them. And God’s plans will always prevail over your plans. I want to take you by the head and lead you to the Garden of Gethsemane until you surrender your will to His will and say, „Not my will, but Thine be done.“ Some of it you will understand soon, but there are some things you will go through that will only make sense in the ages to come. You will begin to say, „Lord, I thank You that I had to leave Moab and go back to Bethlehem, because if that hadn’t happened, then this wouldn’t have happened; and if that hadn’t happened, then this wouldn’t have happened.“
That providential moving of the Holy Spirit is also a part of the gift of God. Now, I don’t want to minimize the pain of uncertainty; I don’t want to act like it’s easy to deal with uncertainty. I know it’s not easy, I know it hurts, I know it’s painful, I know it’s difficult; I know it’s tough. That’s where you have to believe, and you have to trust that this is going to work out for your good. You just accept the gift, and over time you will open it up, and little by little you will begin to see that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delighteth in his way.
2020, especially in 2019 and even into 2021, has been interesting for a lot of us. It has been really, really interesting, but none of it has gone off course from what God has in mind, because even the things that were wrong, unjust, unfair, cruel, painful, and difficult will still work together to accomplish the eternal purpose of God. You have to be a believer to believe that; you have to submit to believe that.
I want to pray with you now because we, by nature, want to know now, but some things we will only understand then. And until that time comes, you have to walk through Ephesians 2 and thank God for what He’s already done: how He’s quickened you, how He’s turned your life around, how He’s made you alive, how He’s forgiven your sins, and He’s set you on a different path of destiny. You have to trust Him that in the ages to come, everything you don’t understand will be unfolded. I grew up in the Baptist Church and we used to say, „We are tossed and driven on the restless sea of time; somber skies and howling tempest often succeed a bright sunshine. But in that land of perfect day, when the mist has rolled away, we will understand it better by and by.“ Let me pray with you tonight.
Father, in the name of Jesus, there are some people right now who really, really want understanding, and I understand it because I’ve been one of them, and I may be one again from time to time. We just want to know what we don’t know; we want to see what we don’t see; we want to understand what we don’t understand. But Father, right now, give them the grace to trust You when they can’t trace You, to believe in You, and to rest in the fact that all things are going to work together for their good. I pray that right now, all over the world, with hands raised and tears falling, there will be a surrender to Your will, an abandonment of our spirit of cynicism, criticism, complaints, aggravation, depression, and fear. That we would just lift our hands and surrender all to You and give You our highest praise with grateful hearts. That He that began a good work in us shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. That is my prayer, and I pray it for you tonight in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and every blessed believer said, „Amen.“
I hope you’ve been blessed tonight by the Word of God and that, in some way, it may have helped to strengthen you. I love the book of Ephesians; it’s loaded with all kinds of stuff. I could talk about it all night long, but I thought these ten verses were enough to leave with you tonight to really think on, to digest, to receive into your spirit, to accept into your life. Because, for many of us, this is addressing some pretty hard stuff.
We’ve had parents and children die; we’ve had relationships fall apart, jobs collapse, and businesses go under. We’ve got people who are walking who were once non-walkers, and people who used to love to dance who are now in wheelchairs. Some of the things you’re going through—I’m not making light of them; they are difficult—but I also understand that God has a plan, and your belief and faith in Him make all the difference between church-goers and believers.
You have to decide tonight: Am I going to be just a person who is in my old nature going to church, or am I going to be a born-again, baptized, Spirit-filled believer? On the strength of that faith, I live; on the strength of that faith, I give. I sow into it; I plant my seeds of faith into it. I activate my faith by my actions. I plant into the Kingdom of God because I’m sowing from the visible into the invisible. I’m sowing from the tangible into the intangible. I’m praying from the physical into the spiritual. We do it all as unto God because my problem is over here, but my answer is over there.
To all of you who have sown and are sowing and planting tonight, you give God your corruptible things, and He gives you His incorruptible things. Trust me, you always get the best end of the deal because whatever God has in store for you, whatever God is getting ready to do in your life, it is the gift of God.
Just before I close, if you do not know Jesus, I don’t know how you’re making it—not now, with the plagues loose and the curses unleashed and this apocalyptic situation that we’re living in right now that reminds us of eschatology and tells us that time is winding up. This is no time for you to play games with God. If you want Him in your life right now, before we close this Bible class tonight, can I pray with you?
I’d love to get a note from you, a word from you that says, „I want to be saved.“ I’d love for you to type it right on the line right now: „I want to be saved.“ I’m going to give you a minute—just say that mere confession shakes hell, makes demons tremble, and makes Satan flee. „I want to be saved.“ Just that mere confession escapes the gravitational pull of drugs, addiction, depression, suicide, loneliness, and emptiness. I want to be saved—type it right on the line.
And while you do, not only I but everybody watching tonight is praying for you. There are thousands of people watching tonight, and we are all praying for you to be quickened together with Christ. Join us and step into the royal family and have your sins washed away by the blood of the Lamb. Type it out: „I want to be saved.“ Don’t worry about what people think, don’t worry about what they said or who’s talking about you; type it out right now. A confession is made unto salvation. I want to be saved!
Hurry up, I’m getting ready to pray. Step over your doubt and your fear and say, „I’m just going to say it to myself, but I’m not going to say it out loud.“ No, no, no! Confess it: „I want to be saved.“ I’m going to pray for you; we’re going to pray for you, and God is going to hear us, and He is going to quicken your life. Remember what that means: It’s going to make you alive because what you’ve been calling living is not living at all.
Father God, with a bowed-down head and an open heart, I bring to You Your sons and daughters, whom You have ordained before the world began that they might come to know You. Some of them are in grave trouble, and others have great success, but the success has not brought the fulfillment that they needed on the inside. Some of them have lots of things, but their inside is as empty as an old wagon. I pray in this majestic moment that You would come into their hearts, step into their lives, wash away their sins, and reunite them like two lovers running toward each other at a beach. Reunite them back into the arms of a loving God who has been waiting so long for them to come home, and it was done. And it wasn’t even Sunday, but on a Wednesday night through a stream, I found the One I was looking for. In Jesus' name, amen.