In Him: Redemption Part 2

Good morning. Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1, please. Ephesians chapter 1. Today is the start of EBS. Bring out your children. We have adult teaching too, because adults need to be taught as well.

So come out for it. It's going to be great. Invite everyone you can. Going on for this whole week, Sunday through Thursday. But we are in Ephesians 1, returning to our study. Ephesians 1, we'll start in verse 3.

Chapter 1, verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Let us pray. Father, your word is beautiful.

It is what we need. We need your truth. Father, many of us have heard and been around many lies throughout this week. And if we're not careful, even as saints who have been called out from darkness to light, even those who have received the spiritual blessings in Jesus to be called to adoption through redemption, we can believe those lies and we can start living out those lies.

Father, we're in need of your truth each and every day. Your gospel, your grace, your mercies laid up for us in the Lord. So may we not approach this Lord's Day as we gather in a way that is not fully intentioned for our hearts to change and for us to live a life reflecting your glory through the mercies of Jesus. God in heaven, we need you to work in our hearts.

We need you to draw us near to you so that we can find our comfort in you. We can find our forgiveness. We can find our life. So Lord, let this next few minutes, let this be a blessing. I know I'm a weak tool of yours, but I'm grateful that you love to use weak tools to display your powerful strength. So I pray that my words would be true and that you would help them to hit the mark of what the scriptures are actually saying.

And I pray that you'd be with the hearts of those before me. Let the believers be comforted and strengthened in their faith, and let those who are not in Christ, let them repent and believe upon him and be saved. And may we all in unity together be found under the head of Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, a couple weeks ago we started on, well, several weeks ago we started on these spiritual blessings that we have in Jesus as we saw in verse 3. and we see that Paul is now laying it out and we saw how he has chosen us for adoption to be holy and blameless before him for his glory and honor and we are now on this spiritual blessing from Jesus in redemption that he has his chosen people he has redeemed by his blood to be brought out of enslavement to Satan and to be freed in the Lord and we talked about that a couple weeks ago Jesus purchased a people with his blood out of enslavement to satan and he has brought them to freedom of himself and a fruit before i even get to that we we have to understand if you if you remember what shackles people in their enslavement to satan what shackles them it's their sin it's the deception of sin that this is their life.

And so they willingly, under Satan as their taskmaster, they are shackled by sin. And here, what we're going to see today is that what drives those shackles, what drives the deception of sin is ignorance, is to be completely ignorant under the sway of Satan. And we've already alluded to it, but we're going to highlight that further today, we see this as Satan as our taskmaster in Ephesians 2, verses 1 and 2, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air.

That is Satan. And he is the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. So the imagery here is Satan is leading a people and disobedience as their taskmaster. And we see that he does it, that the chains is against sin in verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh. We are carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind So there that twofold right Satan is the leader of this rebellion and he shackles us in the desires of the flesh and sin itself It becomes our delight our desire for our lives.

And with that, a whole realm of activity before we're redeemed and freed by Jesus, it is all driven by ignorance. Satan loves ignorance. He does not like people to know. Instead, he likes to keep them in delusion or in ignorance. And this is exactly what Paul says in chapter 4, verse 17. He says, Now this I say and testify in the Lord, in Ephesians 4, verse 17, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, as the unbelievers do, in the futility or the vanity of their minds, in their understanding, in their thinking.

The unbelievers are darkened in their understanding. They're alienated or separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. And with that ignorance, with the lack of understanding, they become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. So you see, this is the realm, this is how Satan works in the kingdom of darkness, of enslavement, is that he shackles us with sin and he drives our ignorance in which we do not know the truth.

And so in this ignorance, it's like a common denominator is to live in the passions of the flesh. The common denominator. If you are not putting your mind to what Christ has brought your mind to, which we're about to get to, if you are just passive and just ignorant, the common denominator of your life will be the passions of your flesh. And we see that in society all over.

We see that as a rule. is that when you are not applying your mind to understanding, you will relax and sin. The common denominator is to go with what feels right in our heart, and that will lead you to sin. And this is what the devil promotes. Ignorance drives the sinful passions of your flesh, which is the shackles that hold you to enslavement to Satan.

But you see, now we see a fruit of redemption that opposes that. Now we're at a fruit of redemption in him, spiritual blessing, redemption. We're purchased by the blood. We are freed from that enslavement because God the Father needed to be paid to no longer be enslaved to Satan. So with that freedom that Jesus procured with his blood on Calvary, a fruit of that freedom is found now where we're at in Ephesians 1 verse 9, making known to us the mystery of his will.

We go from ignorance to knowing. We go from the ignorance that Satan keeps us in to make that life of sin palatable to us, to all of a sudden now the fruit of redemption is that he makes known to us. We know. We have understanding. The fruit of redemption is understanding, making known to us. And that's exactly what Paul goes on to say in chapter 4, verse 20.

We just got done reading verse 19, but he says, but that is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self created after likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. Yes, Christianity, and I said this, I think, at Sunday school, so it won't seem too redundant today, is a thinking man's religion.

It is for thinking people. It is not for people to just sit around passive, satisfied with ignorance. But Christianity always promotes thinkers, people who want to see truth and go for it with all their being. They are ones who have been awakened to the truth of the gospel, and they pursue it every day of their life. It is their delight. we see that a fruit of redemption is he makes known to us and he says the mystery of his will what is mystery what is mystery mystery if we're going to define it generally is a divine activity this divine activity veiled to those enslaved to satan but revealed to those jesus sets free with his blood you get that let me say it one more time a mystery or god's mystery that we are we know now through a fruit of redemption mystery is divine activity which is veiled to those enslaved to satan but revealed to those jesus sets free with his blood it's the word is is is mystery there um we see it several times in the new testament we see in matthew 13 11 it's to talk about the nature of Christ's kingdom.

I'm trying to think if I actually want to go to these or not. Let's just get an example of it. Let's go to Matthew 13. Go to Matthew 13. We see in Matthew 13, verse 10, Jesus says why he taught in parables. and he says, then the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? And Jesus said to them, to you, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them, it has not been given.

And so they're the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. It's a, it's the same word as mystery. It's a, you could say it as the mysteries of the kingdom. And so we see that that's the divine activity of the kingdom of Christ is a mystery. And Jesus says, it's been granted to you, it has not been granted to another people. So we see there, there's a divine activity involved that is hidden to a certain people, but revealed to another.

A mystery is explained as the exclusion of the unbelieving Jews and the inclusion of believers in Romans 11 25 Paul says I have delivered this mystery the mystery being that unbelieving Jews are now kicked out of the covenant community and the old covenant they were still involved and now the unbelieving Gentiles are welcome in. This was a divine mystery, this activity of God and in Romans as well as 16 the revelation of the gospel he labels as a mystery and also in Ephesians, he talks about the mystery of marriage reflecting Christ and his church. But to not get lost in the details, generally speaking, the mystery, how we can define it, is divine activity of salvation.

You get that? It's divine activity of salvation. And the reason why it's mysterious is because it's hidden from those who are enslaved to Satan, and it's revealed to those who have been freed by the blood of Jesus. We are given the veil taken from our eyes. Paul talks about this. Let's go there.

Let's go to 1 Corinthians. We'll see that what makes it mysterious is that it's hidden from the unsaved people. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, he talks about this. Look at verse 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 6. He says, yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away.

But we impart a secret, or it's that same Greek word, mystery, and a hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. these things god has revealed to who to us to those who have been redeemed through the spirit for the spirit searches everything even the depths of god for who who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him so also no one comprehends the thoughts of god except the spirit of god now he we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from god that we might understand the things freely given us by god and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person, the one without the Spirit, the one who has not been redeemed, does not accept the things or the mystery or the salvific activity. They can't understand it, they can't perceive it. They do not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

But the spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him but we have the mind of Christ so we see the mystery is is a divine activity of salvation that is kept from the unbeliever but revealed to the believer just so I can belabor the point for a moment look at second Corinthians chapter 3 he talks about this again in second Corinthians chapter 3 verse 12 since we have such a hope we are very bold not like Moses who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end, but their minds were hardened. For to this day, when the unbelieving Jews read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted because only through Christ and his redeeming love is it taken away.

Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed to the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

So again, notice the talk of freedom. Notice the talk of freedom being in Christ, redeemed. And part of that freedom, the fruit of that redemption, is a lifting of that veil, is an understanding of the things of the divine activity of salvation. and so Paul says in chapter 4 of 2nd Corinthians therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God we do not lose heart but we have renounced disgraceful and underhanded ways we refuse practice cunning or to tamper with God's word but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God and even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing in their case the God of this world which I believe he's referring to Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, let light shine of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So there we see the same teaching that Satan keeps his people under ignorance to not see the beauties, the objective beauties of Jesus.

He is objectively beautiful. He keeps them veiled. They can't see it. But through redemption, through the forgiveness of sins, through the costly blood of Jesus, that veil is lifted and we are actually able to see and behold the beauties of redemption, the beauties of his salvation. The mystery is revealed to his saints. And this is a spiritual blessing that we receive, that we have.

This is our life that we have. This is all the spiritual blessings found in Jesus that he would make known to us this mystery and reveal it for our delight. So ignorance is no understanding of God's saving activity. thus you are left to the common denominator of selfish passion that's what you're left to it's just whatever feels good you're ignorant you have no understanding so whatever feels good that what you going to do and people are enslaved to it but redemption brings understanding to you god revealing his mystery to you So your gaze goes from you selfish activity selfism and it goes to Jesus Your whole life is, I'm getting ahead of myself, is summed up in him.

It goes from the passions of the flesh to yourself to self-ism to the Lord. Redemption unveils it and now you behold him and he is your treasure. Jesus, God through Jesus becomes the focus. This is true of how Paul explains the mystery of itself as we'll get to at the end of this, but also kind of the preliminary things that he says about the mystery before he actually defines it itself.

What I mean is, look, he kind of says three things. Look in your scripture and where we're at, Ephesians 1 verse 9, making known to us the mystery of his will. And here's the three things he kind of says about it before he gets to what it actually is. According to his purpose, that's the one, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time.

So there's those three things and it's all centered on God, not centered on us, because it is him we're beholding and we're going to get in our minds off the ignorance of our own flesh upon the beauties of God. And it's those three things, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of God. So notice this is all focused upon God, upon him, according to his purpose.

We've already talked about that. He's already I mentioned that once before in these set of verses. It's according to his good pleasure that this mystery, what this mystery is, it's according to his good pleasure, not according to our good pleasure, what we will, but what God wills is according to his pleasure. And we see that it's set forth not in us, but it's set forth in Christ.

Christ becomes the dominant, the centerpiece of this plan. No longer us and the ignorance of our passions of our flesh, but now Jesus is the center of this plan. He becomes the center of our attention. He becomes everything. And he says it's a plan for the fullness of time. This means it happened not randomly.

That is, the mystery of Christ and his salvation, he's the center of it, and it happened, it came about in his good timing. In other words, Jesus could have been born from Eve, and then salvation came then, But instead, Jesus was born from Mary thousands of years later because it was in the fullness of time that God determined. And again, notice the plan.

The focus is on God and not us. It's not according to our time. It's according to God's timetable. Salvation and the mystery of it, the revealing of it, is all on God's timetable, not on ours. And there's one thing that we like to do, again, in our ignorance, is focus on us. We like it to be according to our pleasure.

We like it to be set forth in us, not in Christ. And we like to move God's timetable. We like to be the master of that. That has been since time began, since sin was here. Adam and Eve, right? They were to be given the tree of life.

They weren't wanting to wait for that. They wanted to force the timetable, the time on it. And so they ate the forbidden fruit. Remember the disciples and the kingdom, right? In Acts 1. Remember what the disciples wanted in Acts when Jesus was about to go back to be with the Father.

Remember in Acts 1, verse 6. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth.

And so there we have the disciples wanting the timetable to be according to them. They wanted the kingdom to come in their way at that time. And Jesus said, it's not for you to know. Remember another, even the Apostle Paul. Remember what he wanted. 2 Corinthians chapter 12.

He had that thorn in the flesh, and what did he keep on crying out for? He cried out that this thing would leave him. that it would be done with, that God's time, it would just be over with. And what is he told in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 8? He's told, Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But God said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for when i'm weak then i'm strong the point i'm getting at is paul would like nothing more but for it to be according to his time and say okay god enough is enough but of course god works according to his own time and the fullness of time god acts it's about him his time not about ours there's so we see that god's mystery is from his good purpose centered on christ and happens as he pleases and so what is this mystery of itself what is the substance of this mystery well he goes on we've already said it is god salvific activity and here we get another description or a further description from Paul when he says to unite all things in him to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on earth and so this is what the mystery of itself is the the understanding that we're given it what's unveiled is that we would understand that all things were created to be united to Jesus under him as a plan for the fullest of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on earth. This is what we are given a view of, of what we can see through the redemption that's in Jesus, is this plan centered on Christ that all things would be united to him.

Now this united, this word to unite, the Greek, the understanding is to gather under a head, okay? There's a head and it's to be gathered under it, of course that's being Jesus. Another way of looking at it is it's a summary statement, okay, that Jesus becomes the summary statement of all creation, okay? Everything is summed up in Christ. The mystery is unfolded for us to behold that all things are summarized, not in ourselves or our passions of our flesh or what we want, but it's all summarized for the glory of Jesus.

To unite all things, to summarize in him, is that the Greek, you know, it denotes of a Greek orator that has a summary statement to his speech and a sentence that everything that he said can be kind of boiled down to that one sentence. And that's the point of all creation, the plan that's the mysterious plan that God has from before time began, that all things would boil down or summarize under the head of Jesus Christ. and this is what is beholden to us. This is the veil that's lifted that we can see the beauties of that instead of being stuck in the passions of our flesh or the ignorance that Satan holds us under.

In eternity, when heaven and earth is one, the blessed chorus that will echo into that timelessness will not primarily be about you or me, but Christ be glorified for he has redeemed a people and united them to himself so we will talk about ourselves but only in light of what Jesus and his divine activity has done again the the focus will will be off us it'll be on Jesus all will be summarized in him and all that he's done in salvation history and the only place that will be found in there is in light of us participating in Jesus being the head. And that's such a marked difference from the ignorance that I keep on saying that Satan has people under. Again, look at even your own attitude, old Christian, when you're not living obediently to Jesus.

You are not beholding the salvific mystery of Jesus and being amazed by it. You are instead focusing on self and the passions that you have that are contrary to God's will. And look at the unbeliever. What is their biggest issue? is that they are veiled from seeing the summary statement of Christ be glorified. Instead, they want my flesh to be glorified.

So we see that this is, again, the plan that is revealed to you, O Christian. You are a most privileged person. Nowadays, it's not good to be privileged. But we are of the most privileged people because the veil has been lifted and we see that, yes, it's all about Jesus and his glory all going under his authority and we get to bow down and worship him. unite there also carries with it a reuniting a again the mister the mysterious plan is for all things to be united under jesus right heaven and earth to be united under jesus and unite also has it with a reuniting now how does that make sense well let's go to explain this this let's go to Colossians 1, which is kind of like the mirror statement of Ephesians here, but he gives a little bit different detail that I think is helpful here.

Ephesians and Colossians are similar in many ways. And we see that he's also reunited things. Look at Colossians 1, even 15. We read it already. At least I think we did. he is the image first or uh colossians 1 15 he is the image that's jesus is the image of the invisible god he the firstborn of all creation he preeminent he wasn created he preeminent is what that firstborn means for by him all things were created in heaven and earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him.

And so he is before all things and in him all things even hold together. So the understanding is that when he created, right, he's used, God, the Father created through Jesus, he creates and all things were united under him because he created and he sustains. But then we know what happens is that creation fell under sin, right? All things were under his reign, his authority, but then creation fell under sin.

And so in that we can see Jesus as powerful creator, but Jesus had a plan to be known as not powerful creator primarily, or maybe that's not the right word initially but rather Jesus to be truly known cannot be known first and foremost as powerful creator but rather he needs to be known as powerful redeemer you cannot know Jesus truly as creator unless you know him as redeemer and so all things were united under him in his creation but he desired to be known as powerful redeemer and so all things were given over to satan so that he would come and redeem and those who come to him would know him as powerful redeemer and thus understand truly his powerful creation look at what he goes on to say in verse 18 and he is the head of the body the church clausians 118 he is the beginning the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent for in him all the fullness of god was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven by making peace by the blood of the cross there's that payment the blood right that he redeemed the people out so that all things would be brought back under his head under his headship be brought back under his authority and so we see that the people of god the veil is taken off and we can come to him as powerful redeemer which then gives us the understanding of who he is truly as powerful creator. This is what the plan of the mystery of salvation always entailed. It's like Jesus would make all things that sin would bring about an alienation and he would bring it back to himself through the redemption of his blood.

So the angel shouted for joy when Christ created. We see that in Job 38, 7. Great verse. The angel shouted for joy at creation. But today they long to look at his greatest achievement of salvation. And we see that in 1 Peter 1.12.

Peter says they long to look at salvation. It's an amazing thing to consider is that they shouted for joy at creation, but they long to see the effects of salvation that Jesus has done. And if you have been redeemed by the blood, you have the spiritual blessing of knowing this divine mystery. both in yourself, as you see it happening in you, the salvation, and in the church around you.

And in eternity, Christ and his work of salvation will be the focus of our eyes. So how much should it be the focus of your eyes today? If in eternity we'll behold the mysteries of salvation that's found in Jesus, and we'll behold his salvation, behold his creation in light of that salvation, if that will be the focus of our eyes in eternity, how much should it be the focus of our eyes today? or how much is the focus of your eyes today?

How much are you giving to yourself the mystery that has been revealed to you, if it has been? How much is it a desire of yours to know this? Because I can, as I already alluded to, I can guarantee you that if you are not fixing your eyes upon the mystery revealed of salvation in Jesus, you are languishing in sin. It is the common denominator to just do what feels right if you are not fixing your mind on the mysteries of Christ revealed.

If you not doing the one you will practically be doing the other And so what I saying here is not that we all need to be scholars right It all about understanding that if you not a scholar you not really saved or you not really mature The point is that as a Christian, is it your delight to behold the glories of Jesus in salvation? Is that what drives you? You might be a very simple-minded person.

You might have a mind that's very complex. It is going to look differently for each one of us based off of our maturity level where we are matured in Christ. But can you say the summary statement of your life is I beheld or I'm beholding or I desire to behold Jesus and his salvation. This is what I drive for each day. Just to try to get as practical as possible.

If you are a new believer, you need to have a routine of reading scripture. You cannot behold the mysteries of Jesus Christ and salvation if you do not have a routine of reading the gospels of reading the scriptures there is no excuse unless if you literally physically or mentally cannot read there's no excuse for you not to have a desire to behold jesus in the scriptures you need to have that routine there is no excuse to not have one because that is what the primary means god has given you as a gift he's lifted the veil from your eyes if you're saved for you to behold the beauties of jesus in there and if you instead say, nah, I don't want that. I don't feel like it.

You are saying something very serious about whether or not God actually lifted up that veil. Your whole life should be reflected in it. I can see Jesus now. You see him in scriptures. So at the very rudimentary, you need to begin a routine of reading the Bible each day. Have a routine.

Read the scriptures. Is it one chapter, two chapters, three chapters, four chapters? I don't know what it will be for you. But nevertheless, a routine of fixing your eyes on Jesus in his word because a veil has been lifted. If you're not doing that, I can guarantee you, you are going to be susceptible to the passions of the flesh. And once you have that routine bolted down, then start memorizing scripture.

And once you go forth from that, get a commentary that explains the scriptures and get to understand the scriptures more. And even beyond that, have a book that you're always reading to help you understand a fundamental truth of the gospel. You know that God has gifted us 2,000 years of church history? It's the greatest time to be alive as a Christian because we have all those efforts from godly men that we can behold in their writings that can help us along.

And not just in that individual level, but if you're trying to behold the power of Jesus in salvation on a corporate level, find yourself being in tune with the local body, with the local saints. Find a pastor or pastors that you can sit under and hear truth and behold Jesus in those words. Find a godly man or woman that you see has a sense of understanding this divine mystery of salvation that has completely changed their heart.

Find a godly person like that and fellowship with them. Ask about their walk with Christ. Ask them how it's developed. They didn't just get to be a mature saint just like that. It was through developing years of giving themselves to the truth of God's word, of beholding the mysteries of Christ in greater array. And they have grown in that.

Find a mature brother or sister in Christ and fellowship with them for the purpose to know how did you grow in seeing the image of Jesus as you do in his word. If you are an older person, I pray that you are one of those examples to the younger generation. The younger generation, let it be your aim that if God sees fit for you to be around when you're older, that you would be the type of person that people see and see that they have been seeing the greater image of Jesus more and more as they grew older.

To be the type of person that a young person can go to you and say, what have you done so that you have been maturing in that way? There are all sorts of practical things that you can be doing to behold this divine mystery revealed more and more since the veil has been taken away. give yourself to understanding. Don't believe society that understanding or knowledge is something that is not that important just following your hearts and your desires is No Christianity is a thinking man religion It is one in which you are to give yourself to thinking because it is the mystery revealed of Jesus Christ and his salvation And if you an unbeliever stop being satisfied with ignorance.

Stop being satisfied with the common denomination of just doing whatever feels right. That is your death. That is your shackles. That is something that Satan keeps you in ignorance and not understanding so that you'll continue along doing what you think is right, feels good, but is actually digging your own hole of death. No. Unbelievers, stop being satisfied with ignorance.

Instead, repent and believe upon Jesus because it's that faith right there that will enable you to see the full beauty array of his salvific activity. It reminds me of a few years ago. I scarcely remember it because I can't remember past a year ago, really. But I remember being at some kind of fireworks show, and one of my sons couldn't quite see that well.

We were enjoying it. I'm going to be honest with you. This could have been a dream for all I know. But I'm telling you, I think it happened. And it fits well with the sermon, so here it goes. But, you know, a fireworks show where everyone's being, you know, ooh, ah.

And all of a sudden I look down, and one of my younger sons, he's crying because he can't quite see it. the wall, it's over. He's looking up at everyone else. Everyone else is like, wow. And he just can't see anything. He can't get up. And so he's crying.

He cannot see it. And so I lift him up and I bring him over the wall and all of a sudden he sees the fireworks and now he's enjoying the oohs and aahs of the show as well and he's satisfied with that. If you're an unbeliever, you are the kid that's behind the wall. You can't see anything. There is much oohs and aahs to be had because Jesus Christ is beautiful in all his divine activity that he's doing in salvation.

But if you are caught in your sin right now, you have no eyes to see that beauty and you live your life in that enslavement under Satan. Even that enslavement you don't even understand right. But there is a way that you can be lifted up over that wall. There is a way that you can behold the beauties of Jesus. That is faith upon Christ and he will lift you up to see the beauties of his salvation.

What are we waiting for? How can we spend our lives doing anything else but to behold him in salvation. This is the benefit that we have, the spiritual blessings that's found in Jesus, that he's purchased us by his blood, that he's made known to us the mystery of his will, of salvation, of Jesus Christ. He's beautiful in all his ways. So how can we, as Christians, not be the type of people that say, give me Jesus.

Let me understand him more. Give me all the tools that God has given me and let me utilize them for the sake of knowing him. let's pray father in heaven thank you for this benefit we have in christ i thank you lord that you have redeemed the people by your blood and you have given us understanding to behold jesus and all his divine activity of salvation certainly all things were unified under his powerful creation but we can only come to you by your powerful recreation or salvation so i pray god that we would behold ourselves to that. Lord, even the world can see the beauties of creation, but the world cannot see the beauties of Jesus in salvation.

So let us behold that, and through that, let us truly understand what's going on in creation, that Jesus is saving a people. I pray, Lord, that that's revealing itself even in our own lives right now, that we were once enslaved to sin, but we fixed our eyes upon Jesus, and now he's grown us after his image, and that sin is being dealt with. And I pray, God, that we would see that salvation happening and we'd be marvelers at it.

And I pray that we're looking at that and other faithful Christians who are maturing after the Lord and we are grabbing hold of all these things so that we can be those who understand more and more the beauties of Jesus and salvation. Thank you for this gift. May you be glorified for this gift. And may we begin today, all the way into eternity, saying glory be to our Jesus who has done this magnificent work of salvation.

Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.