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Ephesians 1:1,
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Paul addresses the church at Ephesus with these words:
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"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.
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To the saints who are in Ephesus,
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and are faithful in Christ Jesus,
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grace to you and peace from God our Father
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and the Lord Jesus Christ."
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Now, I've heard preachers say...
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and I'm sure this is very common for anybody
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who preaches through an entire book of the Bible.
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I remember hearing John Piper say it,
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that when he got to the end of preaching through a book,
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he began to recognize more fully
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what was being talked about
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at the beginning of the book.
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And that's true.
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I've found the same thing.
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I remember preaching through Romans.
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I get to the end of Romans and I recognize realities
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at the beginning of Romans that I didn't really grasp,
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because I didn't really have a good feel
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for the whole book of Romans.
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And so, what I've sought to do in preaching through whole books,
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is read the entire book through
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over and over and over... again.
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When I would preach through Hebrews,
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I got it down to where I could read the book through
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in 35 minutes, and I tried every week
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to be going through the book beginning to end,
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because I wanted the whole book fresh.
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I wanted a feel for the whole thing.
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Not only am I seeking to read Ephesians
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through from end to end,
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I've worked on memorizing it in the past,
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and I'm trying to memorize the whole thing again.
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I've got the first three chapters down.
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I'll be working on chapters 4, 5, and 6 in the days ahead.
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But what's happening is this:
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something is becoming clear,
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that even here in the beginning,
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in this introduction, when Paul says,
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"to the saints who are in Ephesus,
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and are faithful in Christ Jesus."
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He brings forth three realities.
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Saints, faithful, in Christ Jesus.
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And it's interesting to me,
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especially in just thinking through the first chapter as a whole,
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that these are three very prominent realities
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that come out in this first chapter.
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And what I'm recognizing here is
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these three realities about the Christian
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are very much, in concise form,
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that which he is going to go on and deal with
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in much more detail in these verses ahead.
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These are three realities that we don't want to pass over.
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Because they're not just realities about the Christian life
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that Paul randomly pulled out of the air.
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What he's doing here is he's setting the direction,
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he's setting the course for where he wants to take us.
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When Paul when to write, he didn't just start writing
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not knowing where he wanted to go.
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He knew the things that he wanted to say.
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And even in the introduction here,
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he's drawing out realities that pertain to
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the very things that he wants to deal with.
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And we looked last week at this reality,
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"To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus."
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We looked at "saints." We really focused in on that.
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Saints. What's the idea?
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Just very quickly, in review.
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Where does saint come from?
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Well, as we looked at, the term is actually
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very closely related to "holy" and to "sanctified."
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Do you know where it comes from?
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Saint comes from the idea of sanctified.
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In fact, William Tyndale,
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he translated his translation about 500 years ago.
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Here's the William Tyndale translation:
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"Paul, an apostle of Jesu Christ,
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by the will of God, to the saynctes."
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Now I'm not exactly sure how he would have said that,
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but it's s-a-y-n-c-t-e-s.
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Saynctes.
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It comes from the word sanctification,
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you see the obvious connection there.
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But 500 years ago, they didn't call each other "saints."
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In fact, I looked up a page of the William Tyndale,
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and the first page of the Gospel of John,
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and it says "the Gospel of Sayncte John."
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And it's got a "c" in there.
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Well, at some point they dropped the "c" out.
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But that's the idea.
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That's where "saint" comes from.
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What does that mean?
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That means not first and foremost a holy people
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in the sense of morally pure.
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In the first sense it means a people set apart
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and reserved for God.
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And listen, one of the things we want to recognize
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is we're not talking about any kind of special
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higher order of Christians who tower
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above all the normal Christians.
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We're talking about anybody who is a Christian,
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is a saint. They're a sayncte.
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But I want you to know something,
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back 2000 years ago,
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typically when Paul went into pagan cities,
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you know what he would find?
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He would find a population of Jews.
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You've got pagans over here - the gentiles,
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and you've got the Jews.
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Typically, he'd go to the Jews first
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and he'd go into those synagogues.
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But I can tell you this,
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the very idea to those of a Jewish upbringing,
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that that term "saint" would be applied
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to a pagan gentile,
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they considered it a rape
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of the sanctified language of Scripture.
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Because you know what?
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The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament,
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they knew that term "saint" was applied
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to Old Testament Israel.
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It was applied to God's people of the
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Jewish lineage in the Old Testament.
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And they considered that a rape of sacred language,
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that such terminology would be ripped out
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and applied to these pagan gentiles.
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They hated it!
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And yet that is the term that God
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has chosen to give to us.
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Saint.
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But, there's something else here.
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Christians are in the second place: faithful.
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Many of you remember, maybe four or five months ago
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I preached from that very word on
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the faithfulness of Christians.
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And you know what? That whole message stands.
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Don't believe that anything I say today
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undoes that message.
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Because obviously, there is a faithfulness
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about Christians and it can be proved
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from many different texts.
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I'm just not so convinced anymore that this is the text
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that I would have wanted to prove it from.
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And I'll show you in a second what I mean.
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The term faithful in the original is the term "pistos."
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P-i-s-t-o-s.
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And it carries two very distinct meanings. Two.
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The first meaning is, here we are in Ephesians,
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go over to chapter 6, I'll show it to you.
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Chapter 6:21, Paul says,
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"So that you may know how I am and what I am doing,
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Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister."
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See, there's the exact same word: faithful minister.
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Basically, what does it mean?
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You know, you talk about a faithful dog.
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What are you talking about?
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What do you mean?
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Loyal. Yes. Trustworthy. Reliable.
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Loyalty. That is one definite meaning to the word "faithful."
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But there is a second meaning.
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And it comes from really the old meaning of faithful.
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Faith-full, or full of faith.
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Let me show it to you used this other way.
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Look over at John 20 with me.
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Basically, it refers in the second usage
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to someone who is a believer.
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Someone who exercises faith, or is full of faith,
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faithful in that way.
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Faith-full. And you see it.
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Paul uses it both ways.
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And the only way you can really tell how
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he is using it is by the context.
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But, I'll show it to you here.
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This isn't Paul's usage of it, it's our Lord's usage of it.
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John 20:26
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"Eight days later, His disciples were inside again."
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You remember, He showed up.
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He appeared to His disicples the day that He
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had arose from the dead.
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Thomas wasn't there.
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Thomas said that he wasn't going to believe
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unless he was able to actually see the Lord himself
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and put his fingers in the wounds.
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"Eight days later, His disciples were inside again.
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And Thomas was with them.
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Although the doors were locked, Jesus came
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and stood among them, and said,
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'Peace be with you,' and then He said to Thomas,
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'put your fingers here and see My hands,
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put out your hand, place it in My side.'"
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Now notice this:
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Do not apistos (the "a" negates)
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Don't disbelieve, but believe.
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See here's our term again.
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This is the same term that is translated "faithful"
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in Ephesians 1:1.
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Believe.
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Be a believer.
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Jesus isn't telling Thomas to be reliable
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and trustworthy and loyal.
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He's telling him, you need to believe, Thomas.
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Exercise faith. Quit with the unbelief.
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Look, there's not the slightest debate among scholars
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that there's two entirely separate meanings
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to this word. Everybody agrees.
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It's very plain. It's very obvious in Scripture,
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that it's got two meanings.
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Faithful as in reliable, loyal, trustworthy,
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and it also means a believer.
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It means somebody who has faith,
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they're full of faith, they exercise faith.
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I tell you that because if we're going to
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properly interpret Scripture, we need to understand this.
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And then when we look at Ephesians 1:1,
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and we're looking at,
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here's Paul and he's addressing these Christians,
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and this is God-inspired language.
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What's he saying about them?
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What is it that we ought to see is real of Christians?
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We looked at it before.
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Christians are saints.
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But Christians are also faithful.
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Does that mean loyal?
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Yes, it does, and we could definitely prove that.
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And we could look at that reality in various places.
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But listen, again, I want to quote Tyndale.
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Listen to how Tyndale translates this.
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I like to look at Tyndale often,
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because all of our English translations
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owe so much to his work.
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And because he was the first one who
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translated the Scriptures from the Greek into the English.
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Now they'd been translated from the Latin into the English.
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Anybody know who did that?
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Wycliffe, yes.
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But Tyndale did it from the Greek into the English.
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Now listen to how he translated,
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"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
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to the saynctes which are at Ephesus
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and to them which believe on Jesus Christ."
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See, he took that term to mean "believer,"
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not "loyal."
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I looked at seventeen commentaries.
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Sixteen of the seventeen commentators
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were quite convinced this should be translated
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"believer." That it means "believer."
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Listen to Alexander McLaren,
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my wife just discovered this guy.
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Scottish Baptist, actually a contemporary
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of Charles Spurgeon.
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Listen to how he says it,
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"Faithful here, of course, does not mean,
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as it usually does in our ordinary language
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true, trusty, reliable, keeping our word,
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but it means simply believing, having faith."
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Lloyd-Jones says, "faithful is a somewhat
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unfortunate translation because we tend to give
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not a primary meaning to this term,
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but once more a secondary meaning."
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And he means we tend to give it the meaning
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of reliable and trustworthy.
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He says essentially this word "faithful"
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means exercising faith.
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Now you see, McLaren says of course it means that!
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And so many of the commentators said it like that,
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well, of course, it's clear.
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And I'm looking, but they never say
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why it's so clear.
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And, brethren, I'll tell you - you know what I think
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actually makes it kind of clear?
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Is the first chapter of Ephesians itself.
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You say, how so?
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Just notice. Look with me at Ephesians 1.
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First, when we're told about all the spiritual blessings
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that are ours, notice the first one that's gone to:
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Saints. Notice it in verse 4.
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You say the word saint's not there.
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No, but listen, if we remember what "saint" is,
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it's a people set apart as holy to God, notice this:
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"God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world,
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that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love."
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You know what's very interesting?
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He doesn't run right to faith,
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he doesn't run right to believing.
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He runs first to the fact that God chose us to be saints.
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God chose us to be holy.
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Does he get to talking about faith? Yes.
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And when he does, it's not reliability.
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It's us believing.
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You say, where's that happen?
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Well, go to verse 12.
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"We who were the first to hope in Christ,
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might be to the praise of His glory."
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And then in verse 13, "in Him you also,
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when you heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation,
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and believed in Him,
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were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit
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Who is the guarantee of our inheritance.
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Notice 15, "for this reason, because I have heard
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of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."
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What's very interesting is this:
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the idea of being chosen by God to be a saint,
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or to be holy unto God, the idea of us believing,
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and all the time just swimming in the language
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of being in Christ, in Him, in the Beloved.
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That permeates this first chapter.
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Nothing is said about reliability when it comes to "faithful."
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Not reliability, not trustworthy.
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It's the fact that we as Christians are believers.
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Now look, I'm belaboring this for a reason.
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Because as I said last week,
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if there's anything that's important in our day,
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it is that we understand who Christians are.
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We live in a country where our president says
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he's a Christian.
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He brags on Allah and the Koran
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and yet he's a Christian.
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We live in a country where multitudes
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profess to be Christians,
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and you know what?
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Those of us that go door to door,
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you know what we are finding out?
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We are finding out that people do not know the Gospel.
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Just recently, Glenn, Krystal and I,
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we were in somebody's apartment,
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and I asked, after we told them the Gospel,
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have you ever heard anything like this before?
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And one of them shook their head.
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No, never heard anything like this.
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I was downtown with Kevin Williams,
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and I remember we talked to somebody
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down there by the Alamo, and the same thing,
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after we got done with the Gospel,
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I asked them have you ever heard anything like this before?
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Nope, never heard anything like this before.
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We've got people running around all over the place
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claiming to be Christians, and yet it is amazing,
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there is an ignorance.
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We heard in the first hour about the former ignorance?
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Brethren, sometimes we have this idea
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because we were formerly ignorant,
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we've come into the truth,
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we've got this idea that people should know.
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But you know what? We're hearing about -
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John Sytsma can come back from Nepal
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and say that he's hearing about whole villages
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where they don't know the name of Christ,
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but I'll tell you this, we live in a day
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when people do not know the Gospel,
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and they do not know what true Christianity looks like.
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We've got people deceived.
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And it's not just their former ignorance,
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it's their present ignorance.
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And we need to blow that away.
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What is true Christianity?
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Well, on the first place, on the first footing,
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on the first foundation, Christians are saints.
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They are a people set aside by God.
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And in the second place, they are believers.
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They believe something...
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different from what the rest of the world believes.
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Listen, the whole world believes something.
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But what Scripture talks about is the former ignorance.
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In other words, what we formerly believed
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isn't what we believe now.
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Formerly, we did believe a whole bunch of things,
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but it's called deception, and it's called ignorance.
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Why? Because what we believed was a lie.
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And there was a whole lot that we didn't believe,
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that we needed to believe, that we were ignorant of.
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Brethren, this is where our evangelism comes in,
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just as well as our own self-examination.
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Are we the real deal?
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Are we saying the real thing?
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Are we proclaiming what true Christianity is to the world?
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We need to blow the ignorance away.
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Why? Because ignorance kills.
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You know what? Ignorance is not harmless.
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Ignorance is not bliss.
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Ignorance is deadly. Ignorance takes people to hell.
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The former ignorance we heard about from Peter
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in the first hour,
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is an ignorance you die in.
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You will die in your sins.
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True Christians are saints.
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And if there is Christianity, and it's all over the place,
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that's being proclaimed that is not holy,
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there is a form of godliness but it denies the power.
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Brethren, it is a deadly religion.
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All that says it's Christianity is not Christianity.
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And you know what you would have found
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if you would have viewed these saints
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who are at Ephesus?
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You would have found they believed things that
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they didn't believe formerly.
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Oh, you've got people running all around Ephesus,
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and what did they believe?
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They believed in Artemis, Diana.
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The temple was there.
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They believed in the stone, the sacred stone,
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that was thrown down from heaven by Jupiter.
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They believed in those things.
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But I'll tell you what, Christians believe something
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the rest of the world doesn't believe.
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And if you would have asked these Christians,
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they were a group of people and they believed something.
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What did they believe?
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They didn't believe it was a sacred stone
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that got thrown down from heaven,
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they believed that the Son of God came down from heaven.
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And not from Jupiter, but God Almighty,
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the living God sent His Son into this world.
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Brethren, I'll tell you this,
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they believed in the Incarnation.
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They believed that God came from the halls of heaven,
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and He came here.
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They believed that.
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They believed that Jesus of Nazareth
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was not just like you and me.
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He was not just like every other human being
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on the face of this earth.
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They believed that was Immanuel.
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That was God with us.
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This was the Son of God, the Word of God.
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And He's come down.
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And as I heard Piper say last night,
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I'm drifting off to sleep, my wife had a message on,
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He took upon Himself humanity.
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He took upon Himself a body.
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He had to have a forehead, why?
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To have something for the thorns to pierce.
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And He had to have a broad back, why?
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For the sake of the scourge.
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And He had to have a brain and a spinal cord
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with all the nerves, why?
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So that He could feel the fullness of the pain
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with no vinegar, with no sour wine, with no gall.
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He endured it.
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He felt it.
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He would not numb Himself.
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He went to that cross, and He was determined
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to bear our punishment and bear our guilt,
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and He took it there in a body.
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He became like us, so that He could become
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a mediator between God and man.
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Somebody who could satisfy God as a man,
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being righteous as a man,
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dying the death of a man in our place.
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See, they believed that. They believed that.
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The rest of them, they didn't believe it.
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They believed Artemis, and you know, god of fertility,
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and we've got to appease and placate.
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And these people recognized, no, none of that!
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We cannot placate with our offerings,
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and with our produce,
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and with anything that we do in our lives.
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They recognized, One came into this world
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to save sinners, and it's not Artemis,
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and it's not Jupiter.
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It is the Son of God Himself.
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Rejected by those pagans, rejected by the Jews
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that were there. They believed that.
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And I'll tell you what else they believed:
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They believed that He died, but He didn't stay dead.
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He came out of the grave. They believed that.
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The resurrection? Yeah, you better believe, they believed that.
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After many infallible proofs, 40 days,
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He showed Himself to above 500 people.
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They knew it. Those Christians knew it!
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The testimony went all over through the churches.
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In this day, probably some of those people were still alive.
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Maybe some of them had even migrated
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over to Ephesus.
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People who had seen Him resurrected.
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Can you imagine seeing somebody
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who saw Christ resurrected?
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I mean, I don't know what you would do,
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but I would swarm the guy!
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I would grab him and pull him aside,
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"you tell me everything!"
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Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!
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Why? Don't you want to know more?
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Don't you always want to know more?
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More than even what the Bible tells you?
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Isn't that the longing of your heart?
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That's not a bad desire.
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Here are these people, and you know they stood out.
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Why? Because they had holy lives
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and because they believed something like
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the rest of the people did not believe.
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And they were telling the people what they believed.
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Paul says when he went to Ephesus,
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he fought with beasts at Ephesus.
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There were people there.
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That's the same place where Demetrius the coppersmith was at.
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They were taking their trade away.
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These people are saying that these gods
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that we're making with our hands,
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they're all a deception.
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This is having an impact on my ability
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to put bread on the supper table for my family.
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So, you better believe they recognized it.
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You better believe they knew it.
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Paul, he was over there at that hall of Tyrannus
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for what? a number of years,
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preaching and teaching, and the Word was going everywhere.
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They believed.
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They were believers.
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But that's not all.
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Saints believe certain things.
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But brethren, I want you to notice this:
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notice the order of these terms.
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And again, I don't think this is random.
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Because it's not random in the first chapter of Ephesians.
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Nor is it random in other places in our Bibles.
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Saints, first.
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Believers, second.
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And I think we need to look at this,
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because I think most of us have this idea
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about Christianity:
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justification and then sanctification.
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We're justified by faith,
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so we would have the idea of believing and being justified;
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and then sanctification, and that's the idea of
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progressively becoming more and more holy
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and more and more Christlike.
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And yet isn't it interesting, saint is first,
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believer second?
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And you say well, maybe that's random,
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or maybe just standard protocol demands,
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if you're going to address somebody,
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maybe it just came off the tongue easier to say saint first.
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I don't believe that.
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I believe there is doctrinal significance to the order here,
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and I'll show you why.
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Turn over to 2 Thessalonians 2:13.
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This is not a random reality,
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when we begin to study very closely.
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We will see that the idea of sanctification
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is more than once, often, put before
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our faith and obedience to Christ.
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2 Thessalonians 2:13, "We ought always to give thanks
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to God for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord."
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Now notice this:
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"Because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved."
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Now this is very interesting because this
-
is similar language to Ephesians 1:3-4
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where you've got this idea
-
that God chose them to be holy and blameless.
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They were chosen in Christ.
-
And notice this, "God chose you as the firstfruits
-
to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit
-
and belief in the truth."
-
But again, it's interesting that sanctification
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is first, faith; belief is second.
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Ok, go back to Ephesians again.
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I want to draw this reality again out of Ephesians 1 for you.
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In Ephesians 1, notice verse 4,
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"He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world
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that we should be holy and blameless before Him."
-
Again, you get that idea,
-
and then faith, like I showed you before,
-
the hope in Christ is found in verse 12.
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The believing in Christ is found in 13.
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Our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is found in 15.
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And so it's interesting that in his initial salutation,
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saint first, believer second. Full of faith. Faith-full. Second.
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That's what we find in 2 Thessalonians.
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That's what we find as he opens up these realities
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in Ephesians 1.
-
Listen, what you have to recognize is this:
-
What he is going to begin talking to us about
-
is all the spiritual blessings that have been heaped upon us
-
being in Christ, and as he goes through
-
and he begins to elaborate on what those blessings are,
-
the very first thing that he goes to is the fact
-
that God chose you.
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And He didn't choose you just to be saved,
-
He chose you to be holy.
-
He chose you to be a people for Himself.
-
He didn't just choose you to miss out on hell.
-
He chose you to be holy and blameless before Him.
-
And then it's verses later before you get to the fact that
-
there's faith involved in this.
-
You get to chapter 2 before you find out
-
that we're saved by grace through faith.
-
It's a gift of God.
-
But he starts on the note of sanctification,
-
if you don't see it, that's what the idea of holy,
-
being chosen to holiness,
-
being chosen to sanctity, to sanctification,
-
being chosen as sanctified ones,
-
being chosen as saints.
-
That's the idea.
-
It's the same thing, even though you
-
don't see the word saint there.
-
It's the same idea.
-
There's a sequence.
-
Now why do I emphasize this?
-
I emphasize this for this fact.
-
That you cannot be a believer unless you're a saint.
-
And that's critical.
-
That's critical to what Christians are.
-
Are you a person who's been set aside for God?
-
Holy, blameless? Is that the reality about your life?
-
Is there obvious evidence?
-
Listen, we need to recognize,
-
we become new creations in Christ Jesus,
-
old things pass away, all things become new.
-
There is such a thing as being born again.
-
True Christianity is supernatural.
-
There is a non-supernatural form of Christianity
-
that's pumped in this world.
-
"Oh, I believe. I believe in God."
-
"I believe this."
-
Craig's been helping James out with some of the emails,
-
and Criag's been telling me about,
-
and I come across this too,
-
it's amazing how often we see emails
-
where people start the email, "Oh, I know I'm saved..."
-
"Oh, I know I'm born again..."
-
"but, I live in sin, I'm a slave to sin,
-
would you please explain to me how this can be?"
-
That doesn't require a long answer.
-
It can't be.
-
I mean, you're basically describing something
-
that the Bible says does not exist.
-
Unholy believers.
-
And what Scripture is saying is
-
listen, this is supernatural.
-
God chooses. God is active.
-
God sets people aside.
-
And that's first, before we even look at being a believer.
-
Yes, believers believe.
-
Believers believe what Christians believe.
-
They believe the Scriptures; they believe the Gospel.
-
They believe the realities about Jesus Christ.
-
But first and foremost, they are people set aside.
-
And I would just say this,
-
has that happened to you?
-
I mean, is there evidence in your life
-
that you are a holy vessel put aside by God?
-
Has something like that really happened in your life?
-
I don't mean, did you just decide one day?
-
Oh, I think I'm going to become a believer,
-
and I think I'm going to do this,
-
and I'm going to start going to church,
-
and I'm going to try to get my life right.
-
You see, that's not the picture that we get in Scripture.
-
What we get in Scripture is the picture that God
-
chooses to set a people aside, and that's first.
-
And then, believer.
-
He's not talking about then how reliable we become.
-
He's not saying, saint, then you become reliable, though that's true.
-
The idea is you're a saint first, and then you're a believer.
-
And that's the direction he goes in in this first chapter.
-
Brethren, here's the question.
-
Why is it that we so often think of believing first,
-
and then we go through a process of sanctification.
-
Well, I know why that is.
-
Because most of the time when we think about
-
sanctification, we're thinking about the progressive reality.
-
Moving to more and more Christlikeness.
-
But the truth is the idea of being a saint,
-
and the idea of sanctification and the idea of holiness
-
is very often in Scripture set forth as a positional reality,
-
not a progressive reality.
-
It's God placing us aside for Himself.
-
And it's real.
-
This isn't artificial, this really happens.
-
It's not make believe.
-
Do you know something about that in your life?
-
Where God has set you aside?
-
How does it happen?
-
Well, it happens in the mind; it happens in what you believe;
-
it happens in the desires that you have;
-
it happens in the love that you have;
-
it happens there, brethren.
-
We heard in the first hour about these passions
-
of our former ignorance.
-
That's where it happens.
-
We have new desires.
-
We hunger and thirst for righteousness.
-
The old is passed away - in what sense?
-
That we see things, we recognize things,
-
we believe things.
-
It's like the light's been turned on.
-
We see the glory of Christ.
-
We have a love for Him, and we see Him in ways
-
we did not see before.
-
And we want to live our life for Him now.
-
That is the indication of being set aside.
-
We recognize, we're not like the world anymore.
-
This isn't, oh, I'm like the world,
-
but I just plaster religion on it.
-
Something happens - it happens different with different people.
-
For some people, it is dramatic,
-
the moment, the day can be identifed.
-
With other people, it's more gradual.
-
But whichever way it happens, the truth is
-
you are a new creation in Christ.
-
You are one of these people who has been
-
put aside by God.
-
And then, the faith follows that.
-
No man is a believer who is not first a saint.
-
One of these people that clearly have been
-
set aside for God.
-
Clearly have been chosen by Him.
-
A people chosen to be holy unto Himself.
-
And then according to the gift of God, we believe.
-
We become believers.
-
And then there's a third reality here.
-
And it's "in Christ Jesus."
-
Now, I don't look at this like necessarily
-
three different separate identifications or
-
characteristics of the Christian.
-
Although I want to look at them that way.
-
But it's more like you have two qualities that
-
are being modified by the third.
-
In other words, when Paul addresses these people,
-
he's not saying that their faith is in Jesus Christ.
-
He is saying they are in Jesus Christ.
-
He is saying that as saints, they are saints in Christ.
-
As believers, they are believers in Christ.
-
I'm not even sure as a young believer,
-
as I started reading Scripture
-
that I probably didn't even recognize...
-
When you are a young Christian,
-
you are looking for the bigger thoughts
-
and the bigger ideas.
-
And there's a lot of language in Scripture
-
that you can pass over when you're a young believer.
-
It's just, there's words there, but you're not really...
-
"In Christ, in Christ," you know, ok, whatever,
-
you read past those because they're everywhere.
-
It's almost like religious langauge,
-
it kind of gets plugged in there.
-
I want you to get a feel for how prominent this idea
-
of being in Christ actually is.
-
Look with me at chapter 1, verse 3,
-
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
-
Who has blessed us..." notice this:
-
"In Christ." I'm sure as a young believer,
-
I would have read right over that.
-
In Christ.
-
Notice, verse 4, "even as He chose us in Him."
-
Notice verse 5, "He predestinated us for adoption
-
as sons through Jesus Christ."
-
Notice 6, "He has blessed us in the Beloved."
-
7, "in Him, we have redemption through His blood."
-
I don't know that this "in Christ" terminology
-
is found anywhere else in the Bible
-
in such repetition as it is found here
-
in this first chapter of Ephesians.
-
We keep reading...
-
9, "according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ."
-
Notice 10, "as a plan for the fullness of time
-
to unite all things in Him."
-
11, "in Him, we have obtained an inheritance."
-
12, "first to hope in Christ."
-
13, "in Him, you also when you heard the word of truth
-
the gospel of your salvation and believed in Him."
-
You see, the idea here is, we see that
-
us being chosen as a people holy and us having faith,
-
being believers, we see that there's kind of an order
-
in Scripture where us being sanctified, being saints,
-
is set forth before being a believer.
-
And yet both of them are swimming in the reality
-
of being in Christ.
-
That is the chief characteristic.
-
It's kind of like the holiness of God
-
when you go to describing God's attributes.
-
Holiness cannot be separated from any of God's attributes.
-
If He's merciful, it is a holy mercifulness.
-
If God is angry, it is a holy anger.
-
You see, it describes everything about God.
-
And that is what we find with this characteristic.
-
To be in Christ covers everything.
-
If we're adopted, it's in Christ. If we're chosen to holiness,
-
it's in Christ. If we're believers, it's in Christ.
-
If there's a plan, it's in Christ.
-
If there's any good for us, it's all in Christ.
-
We could keep going on here, but here's what I want us to do:
-
I want us to think about what this means.
-
Because you can hear the terminology.
-
See, if I talked about being in a sleeping bag,
-
or in this room,
-
or in this pulpit,
-
you have a very physical, positional idea.
-
You form a picture in your mind.
-
We're talking about a spiritual reality here.
-
What does it mean to be in Christ Jesus.
-
Because this is life and death.
-
In Christ Jesus.
-
To the saints who are in Ephesus
-
and are faithful in Christ Jesus.
-
Here's the first thing I want you to feel about this.
-
It is a positional reality.
-
"In" is a preposition.
-
And in the Greek, that's basically what you have.
-
You have the word "in."
-
More akin to "en," but it's a preposition.
-
And what do prepositions do?
-
Can anybody shoot off some of the prepositions?
-
In, out, above, on, etc.
-
What do prepositions do?
-
They basically identify the relationship of
-
one person or object to another.
-
That's basically what they do.
-
If I am in Christ, what that is doing is
-
describing my relationship to Him.
-
Physically, where are these people?
-
To the saints who are in Ephesus.
-
Physically, they're in Ephesus.
-
Spiritually, they're in Christ.
-
One thing we have to recognize about
-
physical realities, is in many ways,
-
I'm in a lot of different places.
-
I'm in this shirt, I'm in this pulpit,
-
I'm in this room, I'm in this city.
-
I'm in this state.
-
And I could be in many different cities.
-
But you know spiritually, there's only two cities.
-
And you're in one or the other.
-
There's the city of destruction or there's the city of God.
-
You're in Christ or you're in Adam.
-
Lots of choices in the physical realm of where we are.
-
But there's only one of two places,
-
and that's true of everybody here.
-
You're either in Christ or you're out of Christ.
-
I'm not saying whether you're religious,
-
or whether you're at church today,
-
or whether you hold a Bible in your hand.
-
I'm not talking about whether you grew up
-
in a Christian family.
-
I'm not talking about whether other people called you
-
Christians or called you brother and sister.
-
I'm talking this is a reality here.
-
You are in Christ or you are out of Christ.
-
And though we may not recognize the reality of it,
-
though we may not be able to see it with our physical eyes,
-
it's true, and it's just as true as the fact that we're in this room.
-
And it is a greater reality,
-
because it has to do with your everlasting state.
-
It is a positional reality.
-
That's the first thing.
-
The second thing is that the idea of being in something,
-
think about this, we talked about baptism yesterday.
-
And the fact that Biblical baptism is by immersion,
-
not sprinkling.
-
If I'm immersed, I'm in the water.
-
You see to be inside something means it surrounds me.
-
Oh, this is a sweet picture.
-
If I'm in Christ, I'm surrounded by Christ.
-
If I'm in water, I'm surrounded by that water.
-
If I'm in a sleeping bag, I'm surrounded by that sleeping bag.
-
If I'm in this pulpit, I'm surrounded by this.
-
If a child is in it's father's arms, it means
-
they are surrounded by those arms.
-
To be in Christ means I'm surrounded by Christ.
-
That's a good thought.
-
He embraces the believer, in His own life,
-
in the embrace of His everlasting arms.
-
The saint - that's who we find are in Christ.
-
Saints.
-
Believers.
-
In Christ.
-
They all go together.
-
It's not possible that one of these characteristics fits you
-
and the others don't. They all go together. All or none.
-
How about a third?
-
This is a spiritual union.
-
Now I know I said it before, but I want you to see this
-
in greater reality.
-
Turn to 1 Corinthians 6.
-
This is a truth you don't want to forget.
-
If this truth has never grabbed you before,
-
I hope it might grab you right now.
-
1 Corinthians 6:15
-
Paul is seeking to use argumentation
-
meant to convince these Corinthians
-
that having sex with prostitutes is not a good thing.
-
You might think, wow, that's amazing
-
that he would even have to try to convince
-
Christians that that's not a good thing.
-
But let's be glad that he did have to,
-
because in doing so he shares with us
-
some precious truths about what it means to be in Christ.
-
"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?"
-
Your bodies are members of Christ.
-
That's one thing.
-
To be in Christ means you're in His body.
-
You're part of the body. You're connected to Him.
-
He is the head. You are the body.
-
You're a member of His. You are part of His body.
-
"Shall I then take the members of Christ
-
and make them members of a prostitute?"
-
You see there is a real-ness, a true-ness,
-
about the fact that a Christian is a member of Christ.
-
It's so real it ought to impact what we do with ourselves.
-
Because we are holy vessels.
-
You didn't just go and use holy vessels
-
in the Old Testament for any use.
-
God would kill you.
-
You would be cut off from your people.
-
We are holy vessels.
-
There are certain things that are appropriate to do with a holy vessel
-
and certain things that are not appropriate.
-
But notice, "do you not know that he who is joined
-
to a prosititute becomes one body with her?
-
For as it is written, 'the two will become one flesh.'"
-
And notice this, "but he who is joined to the Lord,
-
becomes one spirit with Him."
-
If you are a Christian, if you are in Christ,
-
if you're joined to the Lord,
-
you are one spirit with Him.
-
Just think here.
-
Let's think of a man and a woman,
-
because marriage is a picture of the union
-
that we have with Christ.
-
But just think, imagine with me,
-
imagine a man and a woman who are married.
-
That achieve the highest degree,
-
they experience the greatest extents,
-
the farthest reaches of the Biblical ideal
-
of the married life.
-
The two become one.
-
Their love for one another,
-
their esteem for one another,
-
their intimacy with one another,
-
their communication with one another,
-
reach the highest of the Biblical ideal
-
of what marriage should look like.
-
Their wishes, their desires, blend together.
-
Their lives blend together.
-
What affects each of them affects the other.
-
Their lives are swallowed up in one another.
-
You see, as you begin to think about that,
-
where your thoughts become -
-
you almost know what the other person is thinking,
-
you know them so well.
-
Think about the highest reaches...
-
intimacy gets deeper and deeper and deeper.
-
The intimate association - what does it do?
-
It tends to create conformity.
-
You actually become like one another
-
the more you get close to the other.
-
So the true Christian in their conformity to Christ,
-
in their unity to Christ, in their intimacy with Christ,
-
in their association with Christ, in their purposes,
-
in their desires, in their thinking.
-
Have you ever read in Scripture,
-
we have the mind of Christ?
-
Do you ever just stand back and say
-
that's not just because we have Scripture.
-
It's because what is in Scripture, that Christ has given to us,
-
our minds have been opened to it.
-
And we grasp it, and we have a heart like His.
-
And our desires are made like His.
-
And our loves are made like His.
-
And our passions are like His.
-
Our conformity from one degree of glory
-
to another - we become like Him.
-
Which means what we are, who we are,
-
how we think - the mind, what goes on in our minds.
-
It's becoming more and more like Him.
-
There's a spiritual in-ness.
-
Listen, J.C. Philpot, one of these old -
-
some of you have probably not heard of him,
-
but an old strict Baptist or Particular Baptist.
-
Listen to what he says,
-
"the Spirit of Christ in Christ's glorious Person,
-
and the Spirit of Christ in a believing heart,
-
meet together."
-
This is what it is to be in Christ.
-
And he says, "meeting together..."
-
And you know what he pictures?
-
And we've all seen this.
-
He's imagining rain that falls on a window.
-
And you've been there, in a car, or looking out a window.
-
And the rain is coming.
-
And you're seeing the drops as they start dripping down the window.
-
And have you ever seen two drops
-
and they're coming down, and they come together.
-
Or you see one coming down, and there's another drop
-
on the window that's not moving,
-
and you watch it, and you know when it hits it,
-
it's just going to take off.
-
Philpot sees us being in Christ like those "two drops
-
of rain running down a pane of glass,
-
kiss into each other, and are no longer two, but one.
-
Now if you've been ever blessed with a manifestation of Christ,
-
your spirit has melted into His.
-
And you have felt the sweet union and communion
-
with Him that you saw as with His eyes,
-
heard as with His ears, felt as with His heart,
-
and spoke as with His tongue."
-
We're one spirit with Him.
-
And again, this is not imaginary. This is real.
-
You see, sometimes we get so taken up with this
-
wretched man syndrome, that we forget,
-
we do have the mind of Christ,
-
which means, we really do love the same things,
-
and we desire the same things,
-
and we really are becoming like Him.
-
And we're melding together with Him,
-
and Who He is.
-
In Christ.
-
Here's a fourth reality.
-
It is a union like that which the Father has with the Son
-
and the Son has with the Father.
-
John 17:21, listen to this, you don't have to turn there.
-
Listen to these words:
-
"Just as..." this is our Lord speaking.
-
Intercessory prayer in John 17.
-
"Just as..." Lock onto those two words.
-
"Just as You Father are in Me," just like that.
-
"and I in You." Just as Father, You are in Me, the Son,
-
and I am in You, the Father...
-
"that they" - that's us, Christians, the saints, believers,
-
"also may be in us."
-
Just as You are in Me and I am in You,
-
may they be in us.
-
Just... a lot of people start imagining,
-
the Father is God, and the Son is God,
-
and it just becomes incomprehensible.
-
I don't think that's where you want to go.
-
I think what you want to picture
-
is the Father's relationship to the Son,
-
as the Mediator, as our representative, as our Head.
-
And we are in His body.
-
And being in His body, brethren, you know what Scripture says?
-
In Christ, you are seated in the heavely places.
-
In Christ, we are part and parcel with Christ.
-
In Christ. There becomes realities that are true
-
between the Father and the Son
-
that you and I have full access to.
-
The same things.
-
Brethren, the thing is to be in Christ -
-
we don't think about this enough,
-
we don't go here enough.
-
Brethren I'll just tell you, repeatedly studying the Scriptures,
-
you get blown away to recognize, to be a Christian,
-
brethren, what it is to be a Christian is so
-
out-of-this-world, it is so phenomenal,
-
it is so much a privilege, it is such a treasure,
-
it is so valuable.
-
Brethren, if we could just grasp it.
-
If you were to find out as a Christian,
-
oh, there's no hell, but there's annihilation,
-
or there's no hell, but you don't get what's promised in Scripture,
-
you get what the Jehovah's Witnesses promise,
-
and you can have this world for the rest of your life
-
and just stay here and basically live like this.
-
Or you can be like the Mormons where you can
-
get your own planet somewhere.
-
Brethren, if you know what true Christianity is,
-
and any of those things, you ended up finding out
-
were reality, there would be reasons to just weep
-
buckets of tears even if you were going to escape hell.
-
Because this thing is so great...
-
Paul could just say eternal weight of glory.
-
Because these things surpass words.
-
Just as...
-
Something about the same essential nature
-
of the relationship Father has with Son,
-
that's true of us being in Christ.
-
Another thing: this in Christ, it's a union of life.
-
Just listen to these:
-
"in Him was life."
-
You see, you're either in Him or you're out of Him.
-
And to be in Him - remember what He said about,
-
He is the vine, we are the branches.
-
You've got to be connected to Him if you would have life.
-
"Abide in Me and I in you."
-
He says, "I am the vine, you are the branches."
-
We're told this: "in Christ shall all be made alive."
-
We're told this: "I've been crucified with Christ,
-
it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me."
-
Our life is tied up in Him.
-
Our life is His.
-
His life is ours.
-
Here in Ephesians 2:4-5,
-
we recognize that we are raised together with Him,
-
we are raised to life with Christ, in Christ,
-
we are raised together.
-
Or you have this in Colossians,
-
what a truth!
-
We find this in 1 John,
-
whoever has the Son has life.
-
But in Colossians, what a glorious statement
-
Chapter 3:4, "when Christ Who is your life appears..."
-
to be in Christ is to be connected with life.
-
Or this: it's a union of representation.
-
"As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."
-
We know this. This is the great truth that is taught
-
in Romans 5.
-
To be in Christ means Christ is my federal head.
-
He's my representative.
-
To be in Him means that all that happens to Him,
-
happens to me. All that is His is mine.
-
Did He come and earn a righteousness?
-
That righteousness is mine.
-
I'm made the righteousness of God, remember?
-
Remember those two little words that are attached
-
there in the last verse of 2 Cor 5,
-
what is it? In Him.
-
In Him I become the righteousness of God.
-
He Who knew no sin, became sin.
-
But it's in Him. Not outside of Him.
-
It's in Him. In. Him.
-
And in Him I'm represented.
-
Notice what Scripture says,
-
if I'm in Him, did He die? Yes, I died.
-
Was He buried? Yes. Then I'm buried.
-
Was He crucified? Then I'm crucified with Christ.
-
Did He rise from the dead? Then I rose from the dead.
-
Does He have a righteousness?
-
Then that righteousness is mine.
-
Brethren, is He seated at the right hand of the Father?
-
Yes. Then so am I.
-
Brethren, He's got His eye on you.
-
You are betrothed to Him.
-
He knows who His own are.
-
And He's watching them.
-
And He is jealously protective.
-
And He means to bring you there,
-
holy and blameless before Him.
-
He means to gather you.
-
You are in Him. You are His.
-
You are connected to Him.
-
Your life is in Him.
-
There is a union of representation.
-
As a head to the rest of the body,
-
that shows up here,
-
speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up
-
in every way into Him Who is the Head, into Christ.
-
What this tells me is it's a dynamic union.
-
In other words, I'm growing into Him more and more.
-
This is speaking the truth in love,
-
we are to grow up in every way.
-
We are to grow out of self, into Him, into love.
-
Out of self-indulgence and self-exaltation
-
and self - growing into that which is only
-
to be found in Him.
-
It's like that fertile soil;
-
I'm thinking of places in my own lawn
-
where I dumped really rich soil,
-
and you know the smart plants send roots over there.
-
That's what we're doing, we're sending roots deeper,
-
and deeper and deeper into Christ,
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drawing the nutrients up out of Him.
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Brethren, this union. I can't see it.
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But, oh, you can sense it.
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I can't see it, but I'll tell you this:
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God makes it happen, God knows it happened,
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God keeps it permanently from ever coming apart.
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One of the things we find in Scripture,
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these people that believe you can lose your salvation
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don't understand what it means to be in Christ.
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Because Scripture says that if you're in Christ
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it is in indissoluble union.
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Paul says this, "I'm sure that neither death nor life,
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nor angels nor rulers, nor things present
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nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth,
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nor anything else in all creation will be able to
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separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
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I'm going to wrap up by saying this:
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One of the reasons that we have pity parties,
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one of the reasons that we fall into the depression that we do,
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or the despair that we do,
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when you start really grasping truths like this,
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what it should tell us is we need to repent of our complaining,
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our lethargy, our depression, our lack of joy,
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our envying what the world has out there.
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They don't have anything on us.
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We're in Christ. In Christ.
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These folks, they were saints, they were full of faith,
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they were in Christ, and all the while
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they lived in Ephesus.
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The pagans knew these folks were there.
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I'll tell you when this characterizes your life
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and you live in the reality of these truths,
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the world out there recognizes,
-
there's something different about these people.
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Brethren, we're saints of God.
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We believe that Jesus Christ shed His blood for us.
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We believe, brethren. We're in Christ.
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God has put us in a position where
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we are so intimately connected with Christ,
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and it's never going to go away.
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God is never going to let us out.
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You're connected to Christ. He never lets you go.
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He takes care of you. He protects you.
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He surrounds you. Surrounded by Christ.
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Brethren, if these things are true of us,
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the world's going to sit up and take notice.
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They may be like the beasts at Ephesus,
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they may persecute us,
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they may stone us, they may seek to kill us,
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they may hate it, they may want to stay
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as far away from here as possible,
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but they will sit up and take notice.
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But brethren, I wanted to focus on these things
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just as we get going.
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I know this is only introductory,
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but this is key.
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Paul doesn't randomly use these.
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Paul is going to develop these three concepts
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throughout chapter 1:
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saints, believers, in Christ.
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We're going to see this a lot.
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But oh, what truths come out of this first chapter.
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It's going to be exciting.
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Father, we marvel at the realities
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of what's true, what's really true,
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about those who are Your people.
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I marvel.
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Lord, help us to see, help us to know,
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help us to remember.
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Bring us in remembrance of all these things.
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In the midst of this crooked and perverse generation.
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In the midst of which You've put us.
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Just like Ephesus of old.
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Those people were able to be saints
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and believers and in Christ in Ephesus.
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In the very capital of the Artemis worship
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and the temple and the sacred stone that came down
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from the sky.
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And Lord, in the midst of all the magic books
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and the demonic and the darkness
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and the enemies of the cross,
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and they were able to be saints,
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believers, in Christ, and so should we
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by the grace of God,
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and I pray that it would be said of these,
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Lord, that we may have the same testimony,
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as true believers,
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I ask in Christ's name, Amen.