Christ your Redeemer: Prophet, Priest, and King

Well, Scripture teaches that God is our judge.

God is a judge, He is our judge. And it's clear as you read

through these passages of the Bible what kind of judge he is.

Exodus 23, seven says keep from a false charge and do not kill

the innocent and righteous. God says, for I will not acquit

the wicked. Proverbs 1715.

He who justifies the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.

Exodus 34, five to seven, The Lord.

The Lord is gracious and merciful, yes, but he by no

means will clear the guilty. So we say what a terrifying

thing it is to fall into the hands of a living God.

And Scripture also plainly reveals not who God is, but who

we are. And Paul says in Romans 310 that

we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and

so we are the wicked ones. Romans 6 will say the wages of

sin is what death We were guilty, we are guilty.

And he goes on Romans 47 to 8 and says, strangely, your

lawless deeds are forgiven, your sins are covered, the Lord has

not counted your sin against you.

And we, we say, how can this be that we who are unrighteous have

been declared righteous? How can, how can this be that we

who are not just, God has called us just?

How can he be a just God who calls the unjust just?

And this question is so important that a society has

given it a name. This is the divine dilemma, A

dilemma being a problem that is seemingly incapable of a

satisfactory solution. How can it be that God is the

just and the justifier of the wicked?

And the logic of the Bible is this.

Any judge who acquits the guilty is an abomination.

Any any judge who let's the wicked go free is not a good

judge. And yet you are guilty and you

have been acquitted. And more than that, as Romans

goes on in verses 7 to 8 of chapter 4, he says you're

blessed. Not only have you been

acquitted, you're blessed because your lawless deeds are

forgiven, your sins are covered, and the Lord has not counted

your sin against you. And So what does that mean for

God? He's taken the wicked and

declared them to be righteous and blessed.

And this is the greatest teaching of Romans 326.

We can phrase it as a question, how can God be the just and the

justifier of the wicked? And Paul answers the question

right then and there. And some of these beautiful

keywords. He says we're justified by his

grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus to be

received by faith. Amazing keywords are to pull

into our passage. It's grace, it's redemption, and

it's faith. And that's the answer to the

dilemma. Redemption is the answer to the

divine dilemma. Redemption is an act of God's

free grace to forever show sinners that he is both just and

the justifier of the wicked, the one who has faith in Jesus

Christ. And so if you turn in your

Bibles to Ephesians 1, Paul's going to take that theme of

grace and redemption and forgiveness and faith.

And he's going to put it into his theme of this cosmic plan

for the church, this mystery that's been secret for all these

ages, but now is being revealed to his church.

The cosmic significance of this. And if you'll remember, last

week we shown the spotlight on God the Father, and through the

Father came your election and eternity passed.

And through the Father came predestined toward adoption.

You were predestined to adoption, which means you had a

change in identity from that of being an enemy God to that of

being a beloved son. Or even according to the book of

John is really interesting. In the book of John, the word

Son is reserved for Jesus Christ himself.

And so if you if God, if Jesus Christ is in God and you are

placed in Christ, that makes you not a son, but a child.

Jesus is the Son. You are a child of God.

You've got to change an identity and he goes on.

Intimacy has been created between you and God the Father

because your relationship has been forever healed.

Your inheritance is given. Your future is secure.

Your eternal security is guarded by the legal status change that

came from your adoption. You're being given a family in

your church, symbolized in this local church.

That was the spotlight last week on God the Father.

That was an eternity past, and now you shine the spotlight this

week on the Son of God. In time.

The spotlight is on Jesus Christ.

And it says that when the fullness of time had come, God

sent his only begotten Son into the world, not to condemn it,

but to redeem it, that he might be just in the justifier of the

wicked. And so if the great metaphor for

our salvation last week was the metaphor of adoption, then the

great metaphor of this week is the metaphor of redemption.

Redeemed. How I love to proclaim it.

I know my Redeemer lives. And so again, the spotlight now

shines on God, the sun. If you'll open up to Ephesians

one, our verses are verses 7 to 10.

Let's hear together what God has to teach us about the redemption

accomplished by the Son of God, verse 7.

In him that's in Jesus Christ, in the Son of God, in the elect,

in the apostle. In him, Jesus, 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.

And I want to introduce you as a, as an introduction and kind

of a framework to understand this passage.

I want to introduce you to a document called the Westminster

Shorter Catechism. It'll be very helpful for

understanding this, to guide us through this.

This was a document that was written by the Puritans.

The shorter was was to teach children and church members the

tenets of the Gospels, to preserve truth and to to lay

this truth out again for church members, for families, and for

children. And they did it in this question

and answer format. And I like to compare it to

Ephesians here because like Ephesians, this document, its

power and its glory comes from its focus on Jesus Christ and

his exaltation as Lord, the cosmic significance.

And like Ephesians, it, it frames the church within the

glory and the rule of God that extends over all creation.

And so as you begin this document, it starts with, as

most of you know, the chief end of man.

Why were you made to glorify God and enjoy him forever?

And it it takes you through his his Providence.

It begins with creation. Question 9.

What is the work of creation? Question 10.

How did God create man? It it's taken you from the

beginning and it's setting up your need for for a Savior.

You come to question 14. What is sin?

You move on. What did what did sin cause?

Question 17. What state or what estate did

sin bring us into? Answer sin brought us into an

estate of sin and misery all working its way guiding the

readers toward their need for Jesus Christ.

Question 20 kind of hits the the climax of our own lostness.

It asked this did God leave all mankind to perish in their state

of sin and misery? We, we've earned this before the

judge. We're guilty, we're an

abomination. We're enemies of God.

Did God leave us in that state of sin and misery?

Answer no. He entered into a covenant of

grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery and to

bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.

And my favorite question, the high point of this whole

catechism, this whole document, ask question 21, who actually

this is a I'm going to set it up because this is the great

transition from Ephesians 1, three to six, God's predestining

and electing work to tie it in to Jesus work of redemption.

It asks this question beautifully.

Who is the Redeemer? Who is this Redeemer?

Who is the Redeemer of God's elect?

Answer? The only Redeemer of God's elect

is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God,

became man and so was and continues to be God and man and

two distinct natures and one person forever.

And so the only Redeemer is Jesus.

This is where it introduces you to Jesus Christ.

And the same is true for Ephesians.

We are introduced this morning to Jesus.

God did not leave us in sin and misery, but He delivered us.

He did it by a Redeemer. He did it by grace.

So here again the words of Romans 324, you are justified by

His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ

Jesus. And look at Ephesians 17 again.

And here are those words compared to this.

In Him we have redemption through his blood, the

forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his

grace which he lavished on us. Our Redeemer is the Lord Jesus

Christ, our only Redeemer, the only Redeemer is the Lord Jesus

Christ. And highly interesting and

relevant to our tech is how the Westminster Shorter Catechism

continues. After introducing Jesus, it

moves to this question. What offices does Christ execute

as our Redeemer? OK, Jesus is our Redeemer.

Now what did, what did he do? What, what roles did he fulfill

as our Redeemer? And the Old Testament figures,

they had offices. We would just use the word

roles. There were certain things that

that they did in the Old Testament.

There were prophets, there were priests and there were kings.

And here comes Jesus, the Son of God.

And what roles did he perform? We say he perfectly performed

the role of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king.

He was to fulfill all of these roles, and he was to do it

perfectly. And these three roles connect to

the cosmic scope of redemption. So Jesus, by fulfilling the work

of a prophet and a priest and a king, would fully accomplish the

salvation of his people. What I hope to show you is

that's the subject of our passage.

Verses 7 to 8, Jesus fulfills the office of a priest.

We're going to go a little bit out of order because our text

takes it out of order of Catechism 7 to 8.

He fulfills the office of a priest.

Verse 9, Jesus fulfills the office of a prophet.

Verse 10, Jesus fulfills the office of a king.

It's all laid out here before us, and we're going to start in

verses 4 to 8 with Jesus fulfilling the office of a

priest. And we're going to start

especially by defining what redemption is, what is.

If Jesus is our Redeemer, then what is redemption?

This is a word that's used 10 times in the New Testament, 7

times by Paul. Redemption is the cancellation

or the release from a legal charge, from a financial

obligation or from a punishment. Redemption is release from a

legal charge, a financial obligation, or a punishment.

And if you were to step into the ancient world and and use this

according to their usage, the the most obvious popular usage

of this was release of a prisoner of war upon receipt of

ransom or release of a slave. Your status has changed, the

payment has been made and the emphasis is on release.

It's communicating rescue, redemption is simple rescue.

And so for this reason, commentators are going to point

out, this is not emphasizing in the New Testament a ransom or a

redemption money being paid. The emphasis is on the release,

on the receipt of ransom. The emphasis is the release, the

the freedom that comes from the payment.

And this has caused a lot of commentators in history.

This is just for fun spent a lot of time with their Pins saying,

well, who was the ransom paid to and you've got some saying,

well, there's just an obligation that needed that was built up.

And so a price had to be paid generally Origen said that the

payment was made to Satan because we all sold ourselves to

to Satan. And so God paid the ransom price

to Satan and another people in the church say no, God doesn't

know Satan anything. And so for that reason,

Augustine comes and he says God paid the price to himself to

satisfy his own need for justice.

And interesting to know the the New Testament does not tell you

who he paid the ransom to. The emphasis is on receipt.

The emphasis is on your deliverance.

That leaves the metaphor vague. A ransom was paid and you are

free. And there's a famous parable

that's kind of disseminated through the contemporary church.

I want to read Kent Hughes version.

And it kind of leaves it like this, just a metaphor for

redemption. Kind of vague, but beautiful.

He says this, and in a city on the shore of a great lake lived

a boy who loved the water and loved sailing.

So deep was his fascination that he, with the help of his father,

spent months making a beautiful boat which he began to sail at

the water's edge. One day a sudden gust of wind

caught the tiny boat and carried it far out into the lake and out

of sight. Distraught, the boy returned

home inconsolable. Day after day he would walk the

shores in search of his treasure, but always in vain.

Then one day as he was walking through the town, he saw his

beautiful boat in a store window.

He approached the proprietor and announced his ownership, only be

to be told that it was not his, for the owner had paid the local

fisherman good money for the boat.

If the boy wanted the boat, he would have to pay the price.

And so the lad set himself to work doing anything and

everything until he were finally returned to the store with the

money. At last, holding his precious

boat in his arms, he said with great joy, You are twice mine

now, because I made you, and because I bought you.

And so for the Christian Scriptures say that redemption

came not with money, not with silver, not with gold, but with

blood. And the object of redemption was

not a boat. This blood of Christ, as of a

lamb, without blemish and without spot.

Acts 2028. Pay careful attention to

yourselves and all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made

you overseers to care for the church which He ordained with

His own blood. First Corinthians 620 You were

bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your

body. First Corinthians 723 You were

bought with a price. You're a bond servant of God,

therefore do not be bond servants of men.

Revelation 1/5 And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness,

the first born of the dead ruler of the kings of the earth, to

him who loves us and has us from our sins by his blood.

And Revelation 59 says, worthy are you to take the scroll and

to open its seals, for you were slain.

And by your blood you ransom people from every tribe and

every language and every people in every nation.

And maybe the the greatest passage on redemption, we've

already read it. David Houghton read it earlier.

I want to highlight Hebrews 912. It says that Jesus entered once

for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of

goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing

an eternal redemption, the once for all sacrifice, an eternal

redemption. Look back to Ephesians 17.

It says in him we have redemption, the forgiveness of

sins and those might not seem like they go together.

You can see that forgiveness here is actually put in an

apposition to redemption. And so we see that the

relationship between the two here is the relationship between

cause and effect. The cause is redemption.

You are bought. The effect is your sins are

forgiven. It's relate.

It's a cause and effect. And so forgiveness is the word

effacin and it's used to, to translate a lot of words that

are really, really beautiful. This is a, an incredible word in

the New Testament. It, it communicates or it can

communicate amnesty, meaning pardon for political offenses.

This is the word that's used to translate the, the concept of

liberty or the state of being free within society from

oppressive institutions or oppressive instructions that

would violate your freedom. It's used to translate the

concept of jubilee, or the forgiveness of sins.

And for you this is so beautiful, so incredible.

It's used to translate the concept that you have been

forgiven of your sins. You have been set free from your

sins. God has cast them behind his

back. God has separated them from as

far as the east is from the West.

He's thrown them into the bottom of the sea.

He says I will remember your iniquities no more.

I've forgotten them. And it's it's emphasis is that

it's your sins, your lies, your short temper, you're taking your

spouse for granted, your sexual immorality, you're stealing,

your failure to love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, your mind and all your strength, your

failure to love your neighbor as yourself.

For this, God the Son faithfully became your priest.

He faithfully became your high priest and He secured an eternal

redemption for you. It says He died on the cross for

you. Verse 7.

We have redemption. You have redemption for your

sins. His blood was poured out for

you. The price was paid, and we

confess even with the songs that we just sang, you are free now

and forever. There's a legal status change

and it can never go back. Westminster Shorter Catechism

question 25. How does Christ execute the

office of a priest? Answer.

Christ executes the office of a priest by once offering up of

himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us

to God and in making continual intercession for us.

So what was the role of the priest?

You go back to Leviticus. You read Leviticus 16.

What did a priest do? What the catechism is teaching

you is the priest did two things.

The priest prays for the people and the priest makes atonement

for the people. He does those two things.

And when Jesus comes, this is exactly what he does.

You see your great high priest, Jesus Christ, he prays for the

people. He makes atonement for the

people. Actually, if you go back and

read Leviticus 16, it says that the high priest made, prayed and

made atonement for the covenant people of Israel.

And in the Old Testament, the the high priest did not make

atonement for everyone. It was Israel and those who were

included in it. And he prayed for Israel and

those in it. And Jesus says, our high priest

says, I do not pray for the world.

The High priestly prayer you can read through John 17 and I

encourage you to to read it along this passage.

Jesus says in Chapter 9, I am not praying for the world, but

for those whom you have given me.

For they are yours. All yours are Mine, all mine are

yours, and I am glorified in them.

Here's what I want you to see. There's this great truth that

we've been seeing come through Ephesians, that there is this

group called the church, the beloved of God, and all those

that the Father has given to the Son.

The Son has died for Jesus died for every sin that was ever

committed by every person who would ever believe.

And how many sins did he accomplish for Himself?

None of them. And yet He died for His church.

All those that the Father gave to the Son he died for, He prays

for, He keeps them believing. All those that the Son died for,

the Holy Spirit indwells keeping us until that day.

This is the treasure. This is the beloved ones, the

chosen ones. And Jesus perfectly fulfills the

office of the priest by redeeming his church.

And even now it says he lives to make intercession for you.

He redeemed you and now he prays for you.

And we confess with the apostle Paul.

But by the grace of God, I am what I am.

And his grace toward me was not in vain, he actually says, and

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.

And though it was not I, but the grace of God that is in me, yet

not I, but Christ in me. And we have to remember grace is

a major theme running through this and it's not earned.

Grace is not earned. Grace is not merited.

Grace is not deserved. And yet Paul says in verse 8, he

lavished grace on you. He lavished it on you.

It's the riches of his grace. And this is it says he does.

He did this. This was not on accident.

This is not haphazard. It says in all wisdom and in all

insight, he poured out his grace.

So Jesus fulfilled the office of a priest.

And you move into verse 9. The second thing that Paul see

is that Jesus fulfills the office of a prophet.

Read verse 9 with me. It says, making known to us the

mystery of His will according to His purpose which He set forth

in Christ. We can ask along with

Westminster divines, how does Christ execute the office of a

prophet? What does it mean to be a

prophet? Christ executes the office of a

prophet by revealing to us by His word and by His Spirit, the

will of God for our salvation. Go back again, Look at the old.

We saw the Old Testament high priest.

What did he do? Makes atonement and praise.

What about the prophets? What do prophets do?

What do the prophets of old do? In short, they made known the

will of God. That's it.

They made known the will of God. And it says right here, Jesus

says making known to us the mystery of his will.

And they did it in two ways. In the Old Testament.

They did it by foretelling. They said this is the future.

That was a they didn't do that as much, but you go back and you

it's the the lion's share is 4th telling.

But you see that the prophets of old, you look at Daniel, you

look at Isaiah, you look at Jeremiah, you look at Ezekiel.

They told the future. This is things that are going to

come to pass in the short term. This is the things that have

come to pass in the medium term. And because of those, because

I've been faithful in those. These are the things that are

going to come to pass in the long term.

And you can trust me. Jesus foretold he made the will

of God known for the future, but he also more than that, just

like the prophets more than that, they made known the will

of God to their generation. That's what prophets did.

And so they, they said, this is, this is the word of God.

This is what God has spoken. Now this is how you are to live

your life. And you, there's actually a

continuity. We can say that there are

prophets and there is prophesying today along those

lines. God has not left his church

without teachers and preachers. And this is what teachers and

preachers are to do. We make known the will of God.

It's actually the only authority that we're, we're given as

pastors in the New Testament church is to open up the Bible

and say this is what God says. And now this is how you must

live your life. And every time you take

authority over the Word of God, and every time you open the Word

of God before people, you're getting that measure of

authority you're given, that prophesying.

You're saying this is God's word and this is how he requires you

to live. This is what Jesus did.

He lived to preach and teach and to make the will of God known.

And the beauty of the message of Jesus comes to this very

pregnant New Testament word that is in this verse.

The word is mystery. He came to make known the

mystery of His will. And we get our New Testament

word mystery from this word mysterion.

And it means something hidden in God in ages past that is

impossible to discern by any human means a mystery that God

has hidden. And it's not revealed until God

chooses to reveal it in Christ. And that mystery is the plan of

salvation. It's the gospel.

It was hidden, He hints at it, there's promises made, and we

don't see it fulfilled until Jesus comes as our prophet and

tells us. And so you see in verse 9, this

mystery is a plan. And I know that because it says

making known the mystery of his will, verse 9, verse 10, as a

plan for the fullness of time. When Paul wrote at the same time

he's writing Ephesians, he's writing Colossians, he says to

them in verses. In chapter 1, verses 25 to 28,

he says of which I became a minister according to the

stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the

word of God fully known. The mystery hidden for ages and

generations, but now revealed to his Saints, that's you to them.

God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the

riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you

the hope of glory. Christ we proclaim, warning

everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may

present everyone mature in Christ.

So the mystery is God's plan of salvation.

It is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

And here's the plan. We've seen it unfold in

Ephesians one. The plan was adoption and the

plan was redemption, but it had to be accomplished through Jesus

Christ. And so he gets the spotlight

this morning and he gets the glory.

And we would never have been able to understand the way of

salvation if God had not revealed the gospel to us

through Jesus his prophet. And we could say it another way.

God blessed his people by revealing to them what they

could have never discovered on their own.

The glorious riches of this mystery.

The salvation for the church to be redeemed through the Son of

God, the will of God has been named, made known to us.

We say Hallelujah, The will of God, His plan of salvation has

been made known to us through his Son.

Barclay says for that reason, Christ gives to men the ability

to see the ultimate truths of eternity and then he adds to it

and it's applicable for the day-to-day life.

And you get to apply them so that you know how to live.

There's no confusion. We get these great mysteries and

we get to live according to the will of God.

The third office role of Jesus Christ is in verse 10.

Jesus fulfills the office of a king.

Read it with me. It says as a plan for the

fullness of time to unite all things to him, things in heaven

and things on earth, which reminds us of this glorious

truth that all history is going somewhere.

We're not just floating through the cosmos and the world.

Very pessimistic as relates to the end of the world.

You know, we're the world, the universe is slowly cooling.

We're all expanding and then one day it's just going to be over.

That's that's not the biblical worldview.

It says that all history was looking forward to the coming of

Jesus Christ. And at the fullness of time, he

sent his only begotten Son in the world, and all heaven and

all earth rejoiced. And it says, now we look forward

to the second coming of Jesus Christ at the fullness of time.

He's going to come again and all creation will rejoice.

And we saw this theme and our last two books we've gone

through. This was the theme of Isaiah.

You remember there was a search for the righteous king.

We're looking for a king. And we see Hezekiah, and maybe

it's him. And Hezekiah lets us down.

Hezekiah fails. And so they promised that

there's this other king that's coming.

He's going to be a suffering servant.

He's going to accomplish salvation.

Isaiah 53. And we're looking forward to

him. The same theme was in the

Psalms. As we looked to David and as

he's making it known that there's this king, Gerald Wilson

said this kingship is the whole theme of the Psalms.

And as we go through it, we see that, well, David isn't the king

we're looking for because he failed.

He was an adulterer and he was a murderer and he fell short.

And so we're looking forward to this new king.

And it ends with a Hallelujah court of everybody exalting this

king of glory and the the beauty of Ephesians and the beauty of

this text is it's reminding us that Jesus was that king.

Jesus was the king that we were looking forward to in Isaiah.

He was the suffering servant. Jesus is the king that will sit

on David's throne, the fulfillment of all the psalms.

This is the king of all creation.

Westminster Shorter Catechism question 26.

How does Jesus exercise the office of a king?

How does he execute? In what way is he like a king?

Answer. Christ executes the office of a

king in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and

in restraining and conquering all of his and all of our

enemies. He starts by subduing you to

himself. And I love that.

He says one day everybody, every knee shall bow, and every tongue

shall swear fealty, will swear allegiance.

But it begins now with us when we say, God, you rule and you

reign in my heart. You are Lord of my life.

And we bow our knee, and that is he is King.

He is king over our life. That's what we confess when we

confess him as Lord. And he says that he's coming and

he's going to subdue all things in heaven and on earth, and it

will all be wrapped up under him.

He will unite all things under his banner.

John Stott says in the fullness of time, God's two creations,

his whole universe and his whole church will be unified under the

cosmic Christ who is the supreme head of both.

And Paul says in Ephesians that in his language, in the fullness

of time, God is going to unite all things in him, things in

heaven and things on earth. This word unite all things is a

really interesting word in Greek.

I'm not going to pretend like I can pronounce it.

It's a very complex word. The etymology has the word

kefalay, which means head, where he is the head and all things

are going to come under him. This word is used only one other

time in the New Testament in a really interesting context.

Romans 13, nine. Paul says that all of God's

commandments are summed up or all united under this one head.

That is, you are to love your neighbor as yourself.

So there's this one commandment that all others are shepherded

under that that rules over all the others.

And that one is love your neighbor as yourself.

And he says in the same way, all things on earth and all things

in heaven are going to be summed up or united under the headship

of Jesus Christ as King. And we say, when is that going

to happen? The answer is right now.

It's happening now. And then we confess, especially

on that day, it's happening now and it's going to happen on that

future day. And you can tie 9 and 10

together with with Ephesians 3 when he says this mystery is

already happening. The the mystery is to include

the uniting of Jew and Gentile under the salvation of Jesus

Christ. He says in chapter 3, verse five

that the mystery of Christ is that Gentiles are fellow heirs.

This was part of his plan of salvation.

Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body and

partakers of the promise in Jesus this Christ through the

gospel. And so he says, if you want to

see what it's going to look like to unite all things, look at

this foretaste. Have you had Jews who are the

elect of God? And they had this temple and the

Gentiles kind of were relegated to the back.

We'll talk about this later. They couldn't even come into the

court of the Jews. They couldn't even approach the

throne of grace. And when Jesus dies, the veil is

torn. And now he says, all have access

to me. And from that moment, Jew and

Gentile come together. They are united under Christ as

their common king. And he says just like Jew and

Gentile are under submission to God, one day all heaven and

earth will be brought under submission to Jesus Christ.

That's what he's teaching, which says Jesus is the reference

point for making sense of all creation.

He is the purpose of history. He from him and through him and

to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever.

Amen. That's the purpose of creation.

That's history, the focal point of history, and it's helpful

every few weeks as we're moving through Ephesians to remind

ourselves what the context is. Remind ourselves that Paul is

writing this from prison and he's handcuffed to a guard under

house arrest, chained to a guard, and he's telling you from

prison about the freedom that he's experiencing in Christ as

his Savior and Lord and chained to a guard.

He writes that verse 8, that His grace was lavished on us.

Lavish means sumptuously rich or elaborate or luxurious, and this

isn't an accident. This is part of His eternal wise

plan, which is why it says it's done, verse 8, in all wisdom and

it's done in all insight before the creation.

It says that this was His plan, that redemption would be

accomplished through His Son, and it was done.

Look back to verse 6, to the praise of His glorious grace

with which He blessed US. Verse 7, it's done according to

the riches of his grace which he lavished on us.

And I want you to take a minute and search your own heart and

say, do you treasure that grace? This great?

It's, it's compared to immeasurable riches, it's

glorious grace. Do you consider it a treasure?

Do you understand the cost of eternal redemption and what your

freedom cost the Son of God? What more is there for heaven to

give? It's Amazing Grace.

It's lavish grace. Ephesians 25 Even when we were

dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved, verse 8.

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

This is not your own doing, it's the gift of God.

He says in chapter 2, verse seven, He compares it to

immeasurable riches. So I'm going to ask you, what

would you trade for your salvation right now?

How much can I, How much could I pay you for your salvation?

What gift could I give you in exchange for your salvation?

And there's no answer. This is the greatest gift that

any of us will ever receive. It is our treasure.

You wouldn't trade anything for it.

So make sure that you treasure it.

The application for the believers is in in the room is

is treasure, disgrace. And the application for the

unbelievers in this room is to remember that God is the judge,

and He will not acquit the guilty, the wicked, 1 the

sinful, 1 the abomination. But you've seen His salvation.

You've seen His plan of salvation in Ephesians, one from

God the Father through the Son, applied by the Holy Spirit.

And it says that through redemption, by His grace,

through faith, you can be saved from sin and death and hell, and

your judge will be the one who pardons your sin.

This could be your inheritance. Jesus, it says in this passage,

is the prophet who makes known to you the will of God.

You can trust in him as your prophet.

Jesus is the priest who makes atonement for you and prays for

you so that you will never fall away.

He prays so that your salvation will be secure.

And we confess God will answer his prayers.

His prayers are effectual. And Jesus is the King of all

creation, the King of glory, the King of kings, and making known

the will of the Father. He says to you that salvation is

by grace, through faith, through trust, through belief.

So trust in Jesus as your Savior if you never have believed in

him. And Jesus can be your prophet,

your priest, and your King. And let me pray for you as we

look forward to worshipping him and his grace.

God, what grace is this? That though we were sinners, we

weren't good people. Lord, we were your enemies.

And for a, you know, a good person, somebody might even dare

to die. For a great person, somebody

would die. For a good person, some may even

dare to die. But you loved us, and that while

we were sinners, you died for us.

What grace is this? That you would out of heaven

pour out your grace through your son.

You'd pour your your spirit into your church.

You would pour out your Son and spill his blood for the

salvation of your church. God, we confess there's nothing

more from heaven to give. I pray that anybody in this room

who does not know you as Savior would trust in you and your Son

alone for salvation and that by grace through faith you would

bring people into your fold. That you would call their name

and that they would hear your voice and that they would

respond like John 10 says, and that you would be their Good

Shepherd and you would lead them and you would pray for them and

for all those in the room who do know you.

We pray that this moment we would see just how great your

love is experientially. That we would understand what

redemption purchased, the freedom, the grace to see how

loved we are. And Lord, we confess we love you

because you loved us. We love you with all our heart,

soul, mind and strength. And we ask all this in Jesus

name, Amen. Thanks for listening.

To learn more about Heritage Church or if you'd like to

respond to this sermon, visit our website at

www.heritageshawnee.org.