I want to I want to encourage you in this. Brother Steve is is indeed a blessing to many probably in one way or another to all of us. And I don't I know that to speak of people while they're present can be embarrassing at times and you don't you don't want to hear things necessarily while you're present. But I want I want you to be encouraged by this brother. You know we've we've gone through hardships together. We've been in in difficult places. We've been in hard places. We've been in places where we've been hated and treated ill. And the world has looked in on this as it was happening. And I want you to know this brother loves our Lord. I think I've shared at least at times that night when we were first arrested in Port-au-Prince and I'm sitting there taking headcount of everyone that I'm responsible for. So my son, my brother-in-law, cousin, people that I'm going to see again someday, maybe. We didn't know anything. But as I'm taking headcount and inventory to make sure that we're all present, we're all breathing, we're all aware, we're all prepared to go through everything, the unknown of what lies before us. And I turn and I find Brother Steve. over at the jail cell with his pocket Gideon Bible already opened up, and he's reading from his English translation of the Gideon Bible, and those inmates have their Creole Bible through the bars, and he's reading and pointing to them, and they're already engaged in Bible study. That is the kind of brother that's going to speak to you this evening. The consistency of that was for 19 days. Nearly any moment in the waking days when we had light in the jail cells, Brother Steve, you'd find him frequently with his Bible open and with one inmate or another sitting next to him with their Creole Bible opened up. And he's reading in English and they're following along in Creole. And how much understanding was happening? We don't know. But we know the power of the Holy Spirit to use his word for his purposes for his good. And I want you to know is Steve comes and opens up the word of God. This brother who's opening up the word of God to you this evening is a brother who loves the word of God. He loves our Lord. He calls him Lord of his life. And I counted a pleasure and a privilege to have Steve and come and open up Ephesians chapter one verses seven and following. To me, these verses here is a wonderful aspect of Christ and how we should live. My dad would always come and say, do you know who you are? And my name is Steve McMullin, and so I never really knew what my last name meant until later. My dad would always say, do you know who you are? Do you know who you are? Yeah, I'm a McMullin, Dad. I'm a McMullin. And then I found out what McMullin meant, and it means the son of a little bald guy. And so, and I'm going, Dad, you really want me to be the son of a little bald guy? And it ended up being where we just chuckled about that. But do you know who you are as a Christian? We are to be Christ-like. Do you know who you are? And these verses here that I've been looking at, Ephesians 1, 3 through 14 are I believe the high point of the Christian faith, do you know who you are? And when you look at these verses here, starting with verse 3, that's where we're going to start reading. I'm going to speak on verses 7 through 14 because of Mark. I wasn't going to say anything about that. Anyway, we won't point that out too many times tonight to too many people too very often. So anyway We are going to look at these verses, but before we get into this, I'm going to ask a question What is the greatest work of God? And I want you to think about that, I don't want you to answer it, but think about what is the greatest work of God? And then we're gonna read through these verses and then we'll pray and then we'll get into this. So, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him in love. before him. In love he predestined us to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace which he freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved. Verse 7, 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. In all wisdom and insight, He has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His kind intention, which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of time. That is, the summing up of all things in Christ things in the heavens and things on the earth. In him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will, Verse 12, to the end, that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with the view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory. So dearly father, we just praise your holy name. We thank you for your wisdom and insight that you have promised us in the scriptures. And I just ask that you would just help us to delve into these and try to understand what they mean. In your holy name we pray, amen. So what is God's greatest work? Well, I didn't hear what you said. Well, that's one of them. When I started studying this, I said, what's God's greatest work? And I went down that road and said, OK, what is God's greatest work? So in my own mind, I thought there was at least two or three candidates. So the first one was God's greatest work is creation. I put that out there as number one. And I started looking at that. What does God say about the creation? How much time does he spend on it? And I started looking through the scriptures and found out he doesn't spend very much time on the scriptures. How much does he talk about creation? And then I started looking. There's a couple chapters in Genesis, four or five chapters in Genesis, a couple in Job, a couple in Psalms, there's a couple in Isaiah, and there's not much else. There's various scriptures throughout the rest of the but there's not a lot of information on the importance to God for the creation. Now the world takes creation and thinks it's a, they don't want to call it creation, they call it the big bang and so everything happens from nothing. But in the process, how much time does God spend? How important it is to God, the creation? One other thing I had to look at too was what did it cost God to create the universe? And in my looking at that subject, I went, well, he talks about creating it in six days. And it's like, well, I could do it again anytime I wanted to with the words of my mouth. And so I always looked at Bill Cosby's words to his son, in that I can take you out and make another one just like you. So it's almost to that, in my aspect of what God thinks about creation, when I look at him talking to Moses and saying, I'm tired of these children of Israel, let's destroy them and I'll make you the king. the guy who's in, it was the, I forget what the name of it is, but the head guy here, so it's like the Abraham. So the children of Israel, fortunately Moses said no, God, and we still had the children of Israel. So the other thing was redemption was my second one. How much time is spent that God speaks about redemption? And then you look at this whole scripture here, and you take a few verses here and a few verses out here, and it's like 95% of the scriptures talk about redemption. And I, you know, I don't know how accurate that 95% is, but it's in every Bible. It's in every book. It's everywhere. It's in all of the New Testament. Another thing you have to look at too is what did it cost God for redemption? And I, looking at my boys, I have two boys that are not following the Lord, and I would say, okay, how would it be if I was to send my sons, or one of my sons, to die for another person? And the answer was, well, I'd have to love them as much as I love my son. Or I would probably never send them. And I have to look at that. How much does God love me? He has to love me as much as he loves my Savior before he would send Jesus to die on the cross for me. How much does Jesus love me to actually obey his Father and come? and shed his blood." So when I look at this verses, and I thank you, Mark, because this is one of my favorite verses to talk about, so we'll probably spend a whole hour just on this one, but I don't have that much, I gotta speak about a whole bunch of things. So when we look at in him, in verse seven, Ephesians, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. Redemption, what is the act of redemption? The act of redemption is, in the dictionaries, is the act of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment. Or another example is the clearing of a debt. to remove the obligation of payment of something, and the one that I like the most is to make worthwhile. What did Christ dying on the cross do for me? And when you talk about redeeming me, makes me worthwhile. So when I look at this redemption through His blood, that payment that He provided so that I could have an eternal inheritance with Christ. Man, that is such a wonderful thing. When I look at redemption, I always have to go back to Exodus. There is a, the last plague is always about the destroyer coming onto the children of Israel. God has had these 10 plagues and the last one is the destroyer's gonna come in and kill the firstborn of each household. And that lamb of God, the lamb that he tells them to sacrifice, they are to take this lamb and they are to live with this lamb for a period of three to four days. And then they cut the throat of this lamb, this little furry fuzzy animal, and they cut the throat of it and then bleed this blood into a basin and then take this basin and spread it out on the doorpost of their house. Now this was a patriarchal thing. This wasn't a priestly thing. This was something the head of the household did for his household. And he was to slice the throat of this lamb and then drain the blood and then take a hyssop and put it on the doorpost. Now, had they ever done that before? No. When I look at what God is telling them to do, they had never done. They were obedient. And you always kind of wonder if the Egyptians, if they'd have done the same thing, would they have had salvation of their firstborn too? And so, I look at this In that blood that was shed for my sins, put on my doorpost, what did it cost God? It cost Him His Son, and Jesus Christ had to surrender His life on the cross, and because of it, we are bought with a price. In that, we have been bought by the blood of the Lamb. He talks about that in 1 Corinthians 7, 23. And so when I look at this subject, this redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin for our trespasses, now, when you look at the forgiveness of sin, that point, and we are condemned already, if you go to John 3, 16, 17 and 18, it talks about us being condemned. We were already condemned and we did not have that blood upon us. And because God loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would ask Christ into their lives, He would come into them. And so when I When I look at this forgiveness of sin in Romans 6.23, we have that, in fact, let's go look at that, Romans 6.23. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. Now those wages that we have, We, every time we sin, there is an occurrence that comes along and those are things that we get. Those wages of sin is death. And when I look at that death, it doesn't talk about physical death, it's that spiritual death place. Separation from God. And because of that death, that physical death, that's what was redeemed. Jesus Christ bought us back. He paid that penalty, that death that Jesus Christ had on the cross, paid His blood, paid for that wage that I earned. And because of that, now I was worthless, now I am worthy. I am worth something, value. So, very important. Let's go on to the next one. According to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us, in all wisdom and insight, He has made known to us the mystery of His will. I could talk, there's a lot I can talk about, but I had to kind of hold it back a little bit because there's just a whole lot of information here. So we're gonna look at in all wisdom and insight, verse nine, He has made known to us the mystery of His will. Can we know God's will? It says we can. It says we can be, he has made known to us the mystery of his will and in all wisdom and insight. So what is a mystery? And I found there's 11 of them in the scriptures. If you start studying that word mystery, there's 11 of them. And I think that's something that Chuck's gonna go through next week when he starts talking, right Chuck? Oh well, I don't have time to talk about all of them. There's 11 of them. There was eight of them that were revealed by Paul, the apostle. There was one of them that was revealed by Jesus Christ, and there was two of them that was revealed by John, the apostle. A mystery is that mysterion is in the Greek word, It is something that is hidden that is now revealed. So there are hidden things that Christ has revealed. There's hidden things that God is revealing to us. And when I look at the most important part about chapter or verse nine there, in all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us the mystery of his will. A lot of people struggle with the will of God. What does God want me to do? And I look at that, well, what's more important here? And it's the same thing when you go to Romans 8. And everybody, I think, should know this verse, Romans 8, 28. And it says, and we know that God caused all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. What's the most important part of that verse? And then if you go to John, we've been studying on Tuesday morning. John 17.3, it's the same thing that's important in this verse, in John 17.3. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So when I look at these verses, what do we know? Do we know God? When we look at Romans 8.28, And we know, I think is the most important words in that verse. Do we know that God caused all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose? Do we know the God of the universe? Important, important things. Do we know that? It's the same thing that says in verse nine, he has made known to us The mystery of His will. Do we know what God's will for our life is? And there's a lot of people that struggle with that. And I always look at that and go, well, you know, I don't really know exactly what God's will for my life is, but I do know who's in control of that. It talks about that Romans 8, 28. God causes all things to work together for good. Do you know that when you go to Proverbs, one of my favorite verses in Proverbs, Proverbs 3, 5 through 7 or 9, 8 says, and I look at these verses in the programming, because I'm a programmer, and I'm a what, if then statement guy, if this happens, then this is going to happen. So I look at these verses, if you do this, then this is going to happen. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Now, do we do that? Trust in the Lord with all our heart. Well, I think there's a lot of people who trust God, quote unquote, you know, little quotes. Do we trust God? Yes, we trust when God asks us, do we trust you with this? And we go, yes, God, we trust you. And we believe God's in control of the universe, and we put all that stuff that's out there in that trust bill. We trust God for that. We trust him to get us to heaven. We trust him for our salvation. But when it comes down to, do we trust him with the things that are involved in our lives? Do we trust him with our finances? Do we trust him with our children? Do we trust him with our marriages? Do we trust him with everything else that it comes into? And it says to trust the Lord with everything, all your heart. And then I look at, do not lean on your own understanding. And I look at that as common sense. Do I lean on my own common sense? Because when I lean on my own common sense, usually that's not what God is talking about. God's sense is not common sense. And it's like that story with putting the blood on the doorpost You go, well, how in the world is this blood gonna cause the destroyer to bypass my firstborn and not kill him? And then God coming to earth and dying on the cross, when you look at those things, do not make sense. You look all through the scriptures, God is telling these to go talk to this evil king. And the guy's going, I'm going to die. And they go do it. And some of them did die. Some of them didn't die. Some of it doesn't make sense. And when God sent us to Haiti, it didn't make sense to me. I'm so glad that it wasn't in Saudi Arabia, because they killed people in Saudi Arabia. I was only put in jail for, what, 19 days. But in Saudi Arabia it may have been a lot different. So I look at this. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him. Do you put God first in your life? And He will make your path straight. Now, when I look at that, I'm a windy guy. I go all over the place. I do this and do this and over there and over there. God is the one that makes my path straight. He says, do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. Do you trust the Lord with your health? Do you trust the Lord with the pains you got in your back? Do you trust the Lord with all those little areas that, well, God's too big because He doesn't care about this little thing that's happening to me? Well, is that in your own understanding or is that in God's understanding? So when I look at that, that's always amazing to me. Romans 12, it tells us, I think everybody Needs to memorize these Romans 12 wanted to I can't say the one without the other but It's you start at the very beginning therefore I urge you brethren by the mysteries of God This is a what-if statement or not a what-if if then statement I urge you by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice Now, what did they do with sacrifice when you look at the altar? I? That's where they burnt the sacrifice. The sacrifice was killed and all the body parts that they didn't want put on there, they took off and they put the body parts on there, the cow or the sheep or the whatever, and they burned them. Now, he's telling us to present our bodies a living sacrifice. That living sacrifice, easy to get off the altar. And he tells us to stay there. And it's hard because it burns away things and it hurts. When you look at the things that God is telling us to do, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is a normal spiritual worship. It's not just something that's abnormal. It is a normal thing. It is a normal spiritual service of worship. This is the normal Christian life, to stay on the altar. Hard thing to do, hard thing to justify, because we don't like pain. and pain hurts me and I don't like it. So, sometimes I get off and I have to repent, get back on. So, it says in here, verse 2, and do not be conformed. I look at the Jell-O-Mole And every time I look at this, I always think of the guy with the pumpkins or the square watermelons. And he takes a box, and he puts a little watermelon in there, and it grows up, and it makes a square watermelon. And that's what the world wants to do. He wants you to go be like the Berkeley people down there and burn, and burn all these things that are going on, and get out in traffic and stop. make life miserable for other people. So it says, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed. That word metamorphosis, I found out that's the butterfly. It's not a cocoon. I forget exactly what it's called. A moth makes a cocoon. It's not the butterfly that makes a cocoon. I didn't know that until a couple of days ago. And I don't remember what it's called, but it's that changing from a caterpillar, yucky-looking, slimy thing that crawls on its belly and eats leaves. And then it's transformed after it spends a certain amount of time in this cocoon, whatever it's called. Chrysalis. Chrysalis. OK. So now I know the word. I won't remember it. But anyway, so you go into there and you go, You come out, and you come out the butterfly, and it says transformed, changing into something different by the renewing of your mind. Now, there's a word for that in today's Christian world. Do you know what that renewing of your mind is? It's repentance, changing your mind. Are you repentant? of when God calls sin, sin, do I justify it in my life or do I change my mind and say this is what God calls sin, I'm going to call it sin also and I'm going to change my mind and turn from that. So that you may prove says you can prove what the will of God is so that which is good and acceptable and purpose and perfect. So you can know what God's will in your life. You just have to be that ship that's got the sails out. And it's sitting there waiting for the gust of power that comes along and transforms it. A ship that's floundering doesn't go straight. It kind of just wanders. The guy that's riding the bicycle, I always look at. I used to know this one guy who could stand on a bicycle and not go forward. And he could balance. And he could stay there a long time, but eventually would fall over. But in order for a bicycle to actually motivate, go somewhere, you have to, God guides you if you're going forward. So you have to be moving. So when I look at these verses, the other verse I like to go to is in Jeremiah. Jeremiah's got this one verse, and I think everybody should memorize it too. I love Gene's memorization things. He's got so much up there. It's just almost amazing to me that he has got so many memory verses. He can spout out all these verses. He probably knows which one I'm talking about. If you give him like two minutes, he could probably rattle it off. But it says here in Jeremiah 29, it says, for I know, in verse 11, For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. And then you will call upon me. If you look at that, if then statement, call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. There's an important thing. Searching for God with all your heart. And then he says, I will be found by you. There's the then, the if you do this, then this is gonna happen. So when I look at knowing God's will, You have to trust him. It's like you're probably not gonna go know what God wants you to do, but he uses people like Paul to get you to Haiti. He puts you on an airplane and you go do these things and you get blessed because of those things. Sometimes they're not fun, sometimes they're not. they're not, it's sometimes it's hard. But when you look at it, you always are blessed by those things. I think it's very interesting. Let's go back to Ephesians. So we can know the mystery of his will, that word mysterium that Chuck's going to talk about next week. So, uh, Verse 10, with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of time, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, the things on the heavens and the things in the earth. So when I look at this verse, I used to be an administrator of a, I don't know anything about administration. The only thing I know is that an administrator tends to make things work better. Without an administrator, they just kind of fall apart. When I was a network administrator of a sugar factory network, I was always having to mess with it. I was always having to do something to it because it sometimes didn't work very well, sometimes it worked really well, sometimes it And if it quit, then you always had to go fix it, figure out why it didn't work. So I think of an administrator, when you look at, he makes things work better. When I look at the administration that God has on this world, do we believe that he is in control? Yeah, I believe that God's in control. Do you believe that he's in control of the little things too? He's in, you know, you look at the creation, I was, years ago Carl Sagan was one of the guys that I listened to because he had this space program, and I'm a science guy, I like science things, space stuff, and he would talk about creation, not creation but He would talk about the cosmos and the billions and billions and billions of years and it ended up being where he made a statement and I don't exactly remember what the statement was about being precisely balanced. There was something that was precisely balanced and he attributed it to just one thing. But then when scientists started looking at more than one. Well, this is precisely balanced, but then they found that there's a whole bunch more other things that were precisely balanced. And if there was a plus or minus of those preciseness of where it was supposed to be, that life would cease to exist on this earth. In studying this administration, there's a guy on the internet. You can go, I forget exactly the place to go, but you can go look it up. And there's this one guy who says that there's 90 things in the world that you can look at that if they were plus or minus a little percentage-wise, life would cease to exist. One of the things was the size of the moon. are going around the Earth, the size of the Moon, and the distance away from the Earth. If that was to change, so it was a smaller Moon by a very small percentage, or the distance from the Earth that the Moon traveled around, well then now you're gonna have all the asteroids start hitting the Earth. You look at the Moon and it's pot marked with all these asteroid holes and craters because the Moon is there. And it's at a precise orbit, and the circumference of this moon is at a certain distance. And it keeps these asteroids from plummeting the Earth all the time. We get them every once in a while. An asteroid, it comes and actually strikes the ground. But when you look at it, if that moon wasn't there, life would cease to exist as we know it. One of the distances of the Earth to the sun, how far away we are from it, if that was to increase or decrease by a very small percentage, You're talking about the earth would be too hot or the earth would be too cold and life would cease to exist in those ways. One of the things that amazed me was the amount of sulfur that was in the air. And it's sulfur. Sulfur is a deadly gas when you smell it. But if you have it at the right amount, it helps everything. Without that sulfur, life would cease to exist. And I didn't come up with these things. You can look online for these things. So the administration of everything suitable to the fullness of time, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heaven and the things on earth, who holds all things together? If you go to Colossians, which is just a couple of pages to the right, Colossians 1 verses 16 and 17, very important verses. Whereby him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. Verse 17, he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. In Christ, we're talking about, this is Christ he's talking about. Christ is holding all things together. So when I look at it, the administration, I go, wow, we have a wonderful God who created it, holding it together, keeping it all, you know, finely. Look at, anybody that knows, talks about balance, I always think back, when I was in grade school, we had teeter-totters. And teeter-totters, you don't find them, I don't know, anymore on playgrounds because they hurt lots of kids. And a teeter-totter, you know, you got the heavy guy and the little kid up on top and then all he has to do is jump off, boom, you know, and it hurts the kid up on top. Anybody that's ever seen one of them knows about balance. You have to finally balance. And when something is finally balanced, somebody has got to balance it. Those teeter-totters just don't balance on their own. So in this, we go to the next subject. And I don't think I've got enough time to talk about verse 12, but to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. So, in Him you also, after, in verse 13, in Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who was given as a pledge for our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to his praise of his glory." So I look at these verses, in him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, You know, Jesus Christ came with a specific purpose in mind, and it tells us that in John 18. I think when I learned about this, it's just kind of, man, it's been, I learned it through some messages, it's called The Truth Project, it's put out by I forget what the name of it, but it was a wonderful series. If you ever get the chance to listen to The Truth Project, I've been thinking about getting me another set. I lost all my videos on it, and so I'll have to get me another set of it. And then I'll probably do a small Bible study again. But one of the things he brings out in this is, In John 18, verse 37, Pilate is talking to Jesus. Jesus is being condemned before him. And he says, therefore, Pilate says to him, so you are a king. And Jesus answered, you say correctly that I am a king. For this, I have been born. And for this, I have come into the world. What is that? to testify to the truth. That's why Jesus came, is to testify to the truth. When we go back here to Ephesians, it says, in him, after listening to the message of truth, are we listening to Christ? Because in the next statement in John 19, verse 37, it says, everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. And then I look back at Ephesians. Are we listening to what Christ has to say to that message of truth? Jesus Christ says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father except through me. He doesn't tell us that he's going to show us the truth. He doesn't tell us he's gonna show us the way, he doesn't tell us he's gonna show us the life, he says he is the truth, he is the way, he is the life. He also says that you must be born again. And this is Nicodemus he's talking to, a very high official in the Jewish synagogues area, in the hierarchy of the Jewish government. Very high. He came to him by night, John 3, 3. Jesus said unto him, you must be born again. And if you're not born again, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. Where is God? Everybody wants to go to heaven. Oh, they think they're going to heaven. They think they're good people. But if you don't trust in Christ, if you don't believe, what it says here in him, after listening to the message of truth, The gospel of your salvation. Are you listening to what the gospel says? When Paul the apostle talks about the gospel, what is the gospel? And it talks about that in 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15. And it's really the only place where it defines it, but it's said everywhere. In fact, If you look at verse 3, starting in verse 3 of 1 Corinthians 15, says, for I delivered you as first importance that I have also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried. that he was raised on the third day, according to the scripture, that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, and after he came to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep, that he appeared to James, and to all the apostles, and last of all, to one untimely born, he appeared to me." Christ died on the cross. He was He was crucified for your and my sin so that we would have life. He was buried and he was raised on the third day. And I look at this, this is a huge message that we need to sit down and think about. We need to be people who are willing to tell people about this because it tells us that we are going to be sealed. Let's go back to Ephesians. this message of truth in him after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, also having believed. That word believe, very important word. It's not just I think about him. It's bigger than that. It's believing in your heart. I didn't realize I was doing that. Believing in your heart. A lot of people I know, they, oh, I'm a Christian. I believe. And I've seen people say, that's all you gotta do is believe. But Jesus Christ says you got to repent too. Believe and repent. But it tells us, having believed. I've seen people talk about believing in their mind. A lot of distance between here and here. 17 inches, 16 inches somewhere in there. A lot of people are gonna go to hell because they believed in their mind. Knowing about Christ and believing in your heart, hugely different story. And when you believed in your heart, It says, you will be sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise. That Holy Spirit that is God, it's that triune God. I like what Paul said today about it. This is something that will make your brain itch. There's a lot of things that make my brain itch, and most of it is in Ephesians here. I don't know why he chose us. That makes my brain itch every time I think about it. The predestination makes my brain itch. Except I do know one thing, God has a purpose. for us. God has a purpose. He is chosen. And I think we need to understand that we are chosen in God. God has chosen us so we can stand for Him. When the time gets tough, when the people are coming down on us and hitting us on the head for what we believe, we know we have been chosen by God and we can stand for Him. Without being chosen, I don't think you can stand for Christ. So being predestined, knowing that we have redemption through his blood, we have been made known to us the mystery of his will with an administration who is in control, who has given us an inheritance. Oh, I missed that one. We have an inheritance. Do you know where you're going? What have we inherited? I look at 1 Peter. I got a little bit out of line here. I get so excited about talking about Jesus. 1 Peter. Let's go. It's chapter 1, verse 3. We're going to read 3 and 4. Where are you going to spend eternity at? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. When you ask Christ to come into your heart, where are you gonna spend eternity? Are you gonna spend an eternity in hell? Because people who go to hell live forever too. But this is undefiled, imperishable, and will not fade away. Another thing, I looked at inheritance. Inheritance is also something that Christ gets too. He is, as in my dad died last year, and I was the executor of the state. You know, it all depends on, also, my brothers and sisters. Those people that are gonna inherit with me, they get to inherit the same thing that Christ does, but it also depends on Christ. Christ gets to inherit with us, not just me with Him, which is very interesting to me. So when I look at being sealed in Him, In him also, after listening to the message of truth, in verse 13, the gospel of your salvation, having believed, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge for our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory. Let's go to Romans 8. Paul talked about this this morning. I thought he was going to take away my thunder, but he didn't. And so I get to talk about it too. So 8, Romans 8, Romans 8, Romans is one of my favorite chapters, 6, 7, and 8. When I got saved, Chuck Hellman, he took me under his wing. I was a deacon in Tyler Street Baptist Church when I got saved. And I started asking questions. I was in a Sunday school class with all these elders and deacons and stuff. And so I was starting to ask all these questions and they couldn't answer my questions until Chuck Hellman took me aside and said, Steve, we need to start having a Bible study. And so I met with him every weekend or week one time during the week and we for about an hour, hour and a half every week for about a year and we went through Romans 6, 7 and 8 and They've always been one of my favorites. That and Ephesians. I had another man take me through Ephesians 3 through 14. And I've never really been able to get away from Ephesians. I'm kind of like John Martinez back there. Every time he gets to James, he gets up and talks. He's always in James because that's a book that God has got him in. And it's a book that it just sticks with him. So Ephesians is that way with me and Romans. So if we go look at verses 9 of chapter 8. I think everybody ought to memorize the whole chapter, chapter 8. And I'll tell you, I did it once and I forgot everything. I always have to go read it because I'm getting old. So verse 9, however, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you, is the spirit of God dwelling in you? Okay? But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. This inheritance that we have in Ephesians is that Christ is in you. And one of the wonderful things that I did years ago, somebody told me that I needed to study the Holy Spirit. And that's what's going to take the next hour, is look at all the stuff that I studied for the Holy Spirit. But if you go get the Schofield, if you ever got a Schofield study Bible, He's got lots of information on the Holy Spirit. He's done an extensive study on what the Holy Spirit is, and you can go get his notes online, and they are just wonderful. But this dwelling in you, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, you look at there, the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of God, you got the Spirit of Christ, and then you've got the Holy Spirit. He, if you do not have the spirit of Christ in dwelling in you, he does not belong to him. If you take an LDS to this verse, they will always say, well, that spirit is a purpose. It is a burning of the bosom. And that's not what he's talking about. This God in you, that's one of the mysteries that is involved with the mysteries. You know, you start looking at mysteries. Acts chapter one. is another place where it talks about that. But the word is a little bit different. And I'm not a Greek guy. I've got this Greek logos program. It talks about all this stuff. And it's Greek to me. I don't know what it is. So I look at this in Acts chapter 1, verse 8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come It's a different word there, it's upon you. It's different than the word in you. And you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. And from what I've seen, there's the coming alongside of us, there's the indwelling of us, and then there's the coming upon us. And when you have the Holy Spirit come upon you, and I don't know how that all works, that's one of those mysteries, it's the thing that makes my brain itch kind of a deal, he's gonna, you're gonna receive power. And that power is going to involve you witnessing, witnessing for Christ, going into all the world and preaching the gospel. And I've heard a lot of people go, well I'm not a witness, I'm not one of them, I'm not one of those guys that goes out and talks to people. But that's one of the things that the Lord has kind of done for me. You go out and talk to people. And when I do, it's a wonderful thing. The word of God is, and I had to look at this, Jesus Christ said he's going to make us fishers of men. And I'm not a fisherman. I don't like to eat fish. But I always kind of enjoyed catching them. But I was sitting there studying how it is that a guy goes out and fishes. He enjoys fishing. He goes and fishes. And when God says he will draw, if I am lifted up, I think this is in John 12, if I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. And that word draw there, I've looked at that. And it doesn't mean woo. You know, like that, if you've got grandkids or children, and you have the Bert and Ernie, and he's going, here, fishy, fishy, fishy. The fish is not going to jump into the boat. It's going to be, he's going to take some bait. That bait is going to hang out in front of him. And then that fish is going to nibble on it for a little bit. And then he's going to take it. And the good fisherman's going to snap his line and set that hook. And that fish is snagged, and it's going to be drawn in. That's that word, drag. I will draw all men to myself. It's not a woo. I'm not going to woo him into the kingdom. It's cords of love. When I look at the fishermen, Christ is the one who draws. It's not me who draws. I think what we are is the bait. We're out there, and they get to nibble on us for some reason. And in the process, they take the bait, and they are drawn in. And you don't clean that fish until after you get him in. So sometimes I think that's what happens in a lot of cases. We tend to try to clean them. But this Holy Spirit, when they ask Jesus into their hearts, that Holy Spirit of promise goes within them, and that Holy Spirit is a pledge. of inheriting eternal life. So we can look at this and go, wow, it is so important that we go out and witness to people and tell people about Christ, throwing that seed at that farmer that goes out there and throws a seed. We got lots of farmers around here and they take and, well, Chuck, he goes over there and he puts bad beets and he tries to kill them and he tries to do all these things to these poor little beets. And but God doesn't do that with us. He puts that seed out there so that seed grows. And then he puts us in into their ways. I look at when we ask Christ into our lives, it's like a double seated. bike, bicycle, and he tells us to go do things, and he tells us to go some, and he's in the back usually, and when he comes into our lives, he comes within, he comes into us, and as we drive along, he tells us to go some places, and pretty soon he's telling us to go some places that are kind of scary. And so we go where he tells us to go. And then pretty soon we're going, I can't do this. I can't go where this Holy Spirit is wanting me to go. And so then he says, well, now, why don't you get him back? And I'll steer. And I think that's where the Holy Spirit comes upon us. And we let the Holy Spirit go into our lives. And he says to us, just pedal. Just keep going. look over my shoulder every once in a while, see where we're going, and then talk to the people that we need to talk to, and think about the things that I'm gonna tell you about. Are we going where the Holy Spirit tells us to go? So, in all of it, we need to go and spread the scriptures, spread the gospel, and I'm way over time. So, very important words that the Holy Spirit has given us through this book of Ephesians. So, Dear Holy Father, we just praise your holy name. We thank you for what you have given us in your word that we can know who we are in Christ. You have blessed us with every spiritual blessing. You have given us redemption through Christ's blood. You have given us an inheritance. There's just so many things that it's hard to even think about. I thank you, Lord, that you have given these words to us because whenever we get down, We can always look at these words and really, you can't go through these scriptures and do the boo-hoo thing. When you get through them and you realize what Christ has done for us, we thank you so much because you are the one and only, the one that we think about, the one that we dwell with, the one who gets to help us in all these things. So thank you for your word, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.