Gods faithfulness

What a tremendous privilege it is to stand here tonight. If you have your Bibles with you, please open them to Ephijis Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians Chapter two. We'll begin our reading in verse eleven. I mean back home. My wife and I have a favorite restaurant. It's called Marx Marx American Cuisine. It's it's one of our favorite restaurants in the whole world. The food that they make there is exquisite. It is it's art on a plate, and it tastes as good as it looks. But it's one of those places that you can't go too very often. Amen, But on special occasions we go to Mars, and Mars is a beautiful place, and during one of our visits there, we asked about the decor, We asked about the architecture, and they said, well, you know, actually this used to be a church, a church that died and turned into a restaurant. You go throughout Europe and you'll find other churches that are monuments to what was and no longer is. Churches that have been turned into museums, churches that if anyone is attending, if you shook the place, they would rattle around like the last few lost marbles. Not just churches, but other institutions. If you think about those great institutions that were established to the glory of God. If you think about places like Oxford and Cambridge, places like Harvard and Yale and Princeton, and you think about what they were, what they were started to be, what God did in and with and through them in those early years, and then look at what they've become today, you realize that standing in all of those places, in most of their classes, are enemies of God who despised what the institutions used to be. And yet when we think about anniversaries, frequently that's what we think about. We think about institutions that have been established. We think about how much money we've raided, how many buildings we've built, how many institutions we've started. But the fact of the matter is that is not an adequate or accurate picture of the faithfulness of God over the years. My favorite restaurants, my favorite restaurant fir fitness of that amen. The oldest universities of the world bear witness to that that merely because you have gathered funds and built buildings that make people's jaws drop when they see them for the first time. It's not the same thing as saying that they have experienced faithfulness over the years, because the fact of the matter is, in all those instances they have not. So when we talk about God's faithfulness, what precisely do we mean? I believe we find the answer here in Ephesians chapter two, the beginning in verse eleven first and verses eleven and twelve. Let's look at God's faithfulness in the past. After that classic passage in verses one through ten about our salvation, Paul has one of his famous therefore clauses. Therefore, remember that at one time you gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at one time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of Promise, having no hope and without God in the world. That's bad news. And when we look that at the faithfulness of God over the years, this is where we need to look. First of all, we see that God was faithful to bring salvation to the lost. That's faithfulness over twenty five years. God has been faithful through what he has done and continues to do here in this movement and as it has branched out to bring salvation to the lost. This is what matters. Gather funds and build buildings and establish institutions, but the lost do not hear the gospel and do not come to faith that ultimately what you have done will burn. Ultimately it will have no significance in the long run. However, the faithfulness of God is seen, has been seen as we look back in the past through the fact that God, by his grace and for his glory, has used this work to save people from their sins. Amen. When eternity is your goal, this is how you measure faithfulness. When eternity is your goal. This is the question that you ask. There are institutions all over the place that Christian people have established, and you couldn't find the Gods there if you spend a week. There are churches that have been opened. There are churches in this world that are magnificent. They are glorious edifices, and they were built by the hands of individuals who loved God hundreds of years ago. And yet today if you go inside they are celebrating things that God calls abominations. Doesn't matter if you remain souls aren't being saved. It doesn't matter if you have beautiful edifices, if the Gospel can't be found therein this is where we find faithfulness, salvation coming to the loss. And why is this important? Notice that these men were helpless and God saved them. This is God's faithfulness. Men were helpless and God saved them. If you go back to verse one, you see first and foremost that men were dead, not almost dead, not kind of dead, not light dead, not close to dead. Men were dead. Amen, they were dead. None of that. God will do his part, and you'll do your part. I am not a physician, nor do I play one on TV. However I know a thing or two about dead people. They don't do their part. Amen, they don't do anything. God throws you a life preserver, but you have to be the one to reach up and grab it. No. According to Ephesians chapter two, you weren't even seen on the shore gasping for your last breath. You were a bloated corpse on the bottom of the sea who had to be made alive before you could respond. This is the faithfulness of God. He saves men who are dead. God is not faithful, and that he saves men who are basically good. God is faithful, and that he saves men who are wretched and dead in their trespasses. Therefore, the faithfulness of God is required before men can be saved. Not only are they dead and their sins, but they're surrounded by a world of death. Walking among the world of dead men, dead men who can't help them, dead men who have nothing for them, and a world that supports their deadness and affirms their deadness, in a world that teaches them that their deadness is life. Beyond that, they are under the influence of Satan, the prince of the power of the air, the one who is at worked in the suns of disobedience. They're dead. They're surrounded by the world that's dead, influence of Satany who was the prince of the power of the air. In this world that is dead, they need the faithfulness of God. And they were slaves to their own flesh. Dead in your sin, surrounded by a world that affirms your deadness, under the influence of Satan, and your flesh is satisfied and crazy. The deadness in which you live. Your flesh, in fact, rebelled against the life that God brought to you. It is the faithfulness of God that saves men in a circumstance like this. It is only the faithfulness of God that saves men in a circumstance like this. And it must be the faithfulness of God. Why because we are also helpless to do anything to help me, and in this condition it requires the faithfulness of God. When a man is dead in his sin, when he's living in a world surrounded by death, when he's under the influence of the Prince, of the power of the air, and when his flesh craves nothing but that death, there is no word that I can speak apart from the Gospel that will give him life. So we must not take for granted the fact that over the last twenty five years, dozens, hundreds, even thousands have gone from death to life. This is the faithfulness of God. In addition to this, we see the godless faithful to bring his word to outsiders. He know's what the text says. Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of Promise, we didn't even have a word of God and yet God brought his word. It's one thing for men to be dead. It's one thing for me to need a faithful God to make them alive. It's another thing for them not even to have access to that which God uses to make them alive. And so it is the faithfulness of God who even brings this to them. Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel means alienated from His word Romans three and verse one. Paul says, then, what advantage has the Jew or what is the value of circumcision? The answer much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God, first and foremost. The Jews have an advantage because they were entrusted with God's word. So when Paul says, here an Ephesians, that you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, what he's saying is you are alienated from the people to whom God gave his word. God has been faithful to save sinners, because God has been faithful to give us his word. There are one point eight billion people on this planet who've never heard the name Jesus, and yet here we are. I don't know how many language groups there are represented in this room. But I would venture to say this tap dozen language groups in this room, and yet you are here because somehow, either the word was translated into your language or you learned the language into which the word was translated, and it was there that you met this God. God is faithful. He has been faithful. God was also faithful to make us his own. Notice, having no hope and without God in the world, having no hope and without God in the world, these things are bad. We were lost, we didn't have salvation. God give us salvation. We didn't have the word of God. God gives us the word of God. We didn't have hope. We were without God in the world. And God makes us his own. That's the thrust of this entire paragraph. That God texts those who are not his own and makes them his own. Listen to it again. Therefore, remember that at one time you gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of this world, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. The good news is he said, remember that that what you were and then, but we're not that anymore. Romans chapter nine and verse four. There is another great benefit by the way that the Israelites had that has now come to us there Israelites, and so then belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. Don't miss that the adoption. Israel was adopted by God as God's own son. And those of us who are part of the Israel of God, the Church, have been adopted by God and drafted into that same family. So we're no longer alienated from God. We're no longer without God in the world. This is God's faithfulness. Look at it here in Romans chapter eight beginning verse fifteen. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba Father. This is why God is our father. We are adopted into his family. Folks, God could save us and make us slaves, but instead he saves us and makes us sons. If God saved us and made us slaves, that would have been good enough, it would have been more than we deserved. And yet He has adopted us and made us his children Galatians four fourty six. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has set the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abbah, Father, we are sons. Earlier in this book of Ephesians one, verses four through six, in love, he predestined us for adoption 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. When we look back at the faithfulness of God, let us not fall into the trap of looking at institutions and buildings and the money that we've raised. Praise God for everything that He's done in that regard. However, you can have great buildings and not have this faithfulness. You can have great institutions and not have this faithfulness. So when we look back over twenty five years, and when we speak about gratitude to God, for what He has done. Let us not forget that the greatest thing that God has done is saved sinners. The greatest thing that God has done is give us his word. The greatest thing that God has done has adopted us as sons. And because we're adopted as sons, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. That's the faithfulness of God. The world can't figure out how to get along. There is strife orring and fighting over resources and ideologies. And yet you and I can meet one another for the first time and say hello, brother, Hello sister. I shared them yesterday with the church in the Copper Belt. My experience that the first time I went to Japan, and it was it was very interesting going to Japan. They don't make people my size in Japan. For the most part. There are some, but there are very few. In fact, I come to find out they usually don't make people my size here either. But but but at least here, you know, we have the same color, and I, you know, and if I don't open my mouth, you know, I'm I don't stand out all that much. But the minute I went okay, So anyway, I'm in Japan and I'm walking around in Japan and people are looking and staring, and they're whispering and they're pointing, and I'm sitting there thinking to myself, I don't speak Japanese. You don't need to whisper. I have never felt so out of place in my entire life. And then I went to church and some of the people from the same city, from this same country, from this same tribe, speaking the same language, embraced me as a brother. We sang songs, and so the songs were in Japanese, and I didn't know what the songs were, but every now and then we sang one where it's familiar tone, and I knew what the song was, whether it was in Japanese or whatever. And I could pick out Jesus generally wherever I go in the world, when brothers and sisters start singing, generally, if you listen for just a few minutes, you can pick out Jesus. Amen God, that's the word for Jesus right there. This is God's faithfulness. There are people in this room who twenty five years ago would not have known each other, nor had any reason to know each other. But in the faithfulness of God, you look forward to come into this place that's why we all laughed. When brother Charles said refrained from shaking hands and hugging one another. You could tell, I mean it took everything in him just to get the words out. You know, I listen, I have to say this. I'm supposed to say this, like that's really gonna happen with this group. But this is the faithfulness of God, and that's why we come back. That's why I've come with seven and my nine children and a bunch of other folks, because I desire for them to see this picture, this unique picture on planet Earth. And as what said earlier, I think Ronald said it earlier, if you've not been outside of Zambia, you don't understand what God has done here. You don't understand the faithfulness of God here. But for those of us who have come from outside, and if you wonder why people go to great links to come here from outside, it's just to witness and be reminded of and encouraged by the faithfulness of God in this place. As we look back, remember the foundation of that faithfulness is God has saved sinners. God has given us his word, and God has called us his own. The next part of the text beginning of verse thirteen. But now, amen, hallelujah, praised the Lord. Every time you read those words and Ephesians, you just need to say hallelujah. But now because there was bad news before, that was bad news, bad shape. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, every one of us in the room can raise a hand and say, that's me have been brought near by the blood of Christ, not by your word, not by your efforts, not by your kinships, by the blood of Christ. For He himself is our peace. That's just rich. He doesn't just Christ doesn't just provide peace for us. He doesn't just make peace for us. Christ is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing law of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances. That's the hostility between us and God. Amen, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grow into a holy temple in the Lord. What's God doing in the present? In the present, God has brought us peace with God and with our fellow man. And the present God is continuing to do this. He's continuing to bring us peace with God and with our fellow man. When this thing started, it was mainly Zambia, it was mainly Usaka. Amazingly, it's spread abroad and it's literally impacting people from all over the world. And people from all over the world are coming to this place and experiencing what God is doing through bringing peace with God, through the salvation of sinners and peace with our fellow man. Allow me to speak to the elephant in the room. This is a place. This is a continent that you can't even name without thinking of strife between black people and white people. This is a continent whose name you can't even mention without speaking of strife between black people and Arab people. If you can't say man, y'all to say ouch, this is the ugly underbelly. Fifty year anniversary, fifty year anniversary of what the end of colonization by white Britain, and yet without animosity. And yet people can come to this place in this room, black, white otherwise, and God has given us peace. Why because God is being faithful Right now. Back in my home country, there is much strife. You've probably heard about the shooting and Ferguson and all these other things. And I didn't know anything about what had happened. And all of a sudden, I'm getting letters from people. I'm getting emails from people. You must speak out on this. You must say something about this. You must stand up and speak about the injustice that black people are suffering here in the United States and the hand about Dad. I don't know what's going on at home, but I do know this. The only thing that I could speak that will bring peace to the situation. It's the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The only thing that anyone can speak to bring peace to the situation is to speak the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And the great problem is is that we have come to a place where we believe that what we have to do is we have to organize around our social status, organize around our economic status, organize around our ethnicity, and somehow we have to force people to respect one another. You cannot force people to respect one another. This is the faithfulness of God. This is what the Gospel does. It is the Gospel who makes peace between men and God and then makes peace between men and other men. And it's only the Gospel. But you know what people say, Yeah, okay, I understand that, But it's the gospel land, It's the Gospel. Plus, it's the gospel on top of it's the gospel undergirding. No, it's the gospel. It's the Gospel. And this is the faithfulness of God in the present. The reason that God is continuing to be faithful here is because the Gospel is still here. What's the difference between places that are no longer experiencing faithfulness in regards to what they're doing and the places that are continuing to experience faithfulness in regard to what they're doing. What's the difference. The difference is the Gospel is still here. What's the difference between this place and my life's and my favorite restaurant. The Gospel is still here. What's the difference between this place and those great cathedrals throughout Europe that are empty? Now? The Gospel is still here. What's the difference between this place and the Harvards and Yales and Pristons and Oxford's. The Gospel is still here. That's the difference and the here and the now. God's faithfulness in and through the Gospel. And if it's ever long than twenty five years from now, on the fiftieth anniversary, people will be speaking about what God has done in the past, but they won't be able to speak about what God is doing in the present. You see this stuff, this peace, This that God is doing in the here and the now. This is what constantly drives us to remind ourselves of the centrality and the significance of the Gospel of Peace, because that is our only hope. But there is another thing. There's the idea here that what God is doing in the present is the local church. Oh brother, that's a stretch. I know you're one of those big local church guys, but I mean that really come on. That's a stretch, right. No, actually it's not. But you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. That's not the only time that phrase shows up in the New Testament one tiventy three fifteen. If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the together together household of God, which is the Church of the Living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth Delatians sixteen. So then as we have opportunity, let us be do good to everyone, and especially to those of the household of faiths. This is talking about the church. This is what God is doing. God is establishing churches. Here's the beauty of this. The beauty of what God is doing here is that God is actually establishing churches. That there are people here who come together from churches, that God is raising up man to put the churches. That God is raising up elders in churches. Because this is our hope in the present age, and it's our only hope that we have for any other age in the future. The Church, the church, the church, the church, the church, any other institution that God starts, it had better be in service to the Church. Amen, the Church. Christ laid down his life for his bride, the church. The church. That's the beauty of this God's faithfulness in the past to bring sinners to salvation, to bring his word, and then God's faithfulness in the present to unite us to one another as brothers and sisters in the church that twenty five years later, there are communities today that have churches that didn't twenty five years ago. That's the faithfulness of God today. The faithfulness of God today is that there are young men under the sound of my voice who are prayerfully considering how it is that God would equip them and mobilize them and use them to play our churches. Praise God. Listen to me, Listen very carefully. They're what thirteen fourteen millions Idians in the state of Texas, my home state, there are twenty six million Texas. There are more Reform Baptist churches in Zambria than in Texas. Let me say that again, thirteen fourteen millions Imians, twenty six million Texans. Here we are in the Bible belt, the buckle of the Bible belt in the United States of America. Amen, the place where it's hard to preach the Gospel because you've got to convince people that they're lost before you can get them saved. Amen. This is where I'm talking about churches all over the place. But there are more Reform Baptist churches here in Zimbia than in Texas. I'll go you one better. There's more Reform Baptist churches in Lusaka than in the whole state of Texas. There's more Reform Baptist churches on the Copper Belt than in the entire state of Texas. Celebrate thought statefulness here. God is doing something here, He's been doing it for twenty five years, and he's still at it now. Finally, at God's faithfulness in the future Verse twenty two. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Holy Spirit. There is a sense here that God is doing a work that is not yet finished. This is why we need to pause at moments like this and talk about His faithfulness in the past and his faithfulness in the present, because we can't sit still and we need to talk about his faithfulness in the future. Because God's not done. Amen, what does this mean? God still has us here? Why? Because the number of his electent not yet comple. God's still saving sinners. Amen, God's still saving sinners. And as we'll talk about over the course of this week, and you talk about missions, this is not just our motivation for missions. This is our guarantee of the success of missions. The doctrine of election guarantees the success of missions. God's not done yet. So if God's not done yet, and the Gospel is the power of God of salvation. As we go forth and preach the gospel, God's going to continue to call together his elect Who are they, We don't know, So we preached to everyone. Amen, God's not done. God's not done. By the way, all over this room, there are people who need to rejoice in that, because there's somebody whom you love dearly who has not yet coming to the fold. There's someone that you're praying for and you've been witnessing too. There's someone who's sol you weep over at night, and you need to hear this word this evening. God's not done. There is hope. There is hope, And whatever we've seen God do, there is more yet to be done. The impact of the Gospel has not yet reached its apex mission. It again, the impact of the gospel has not yet reached its apex. And when I see the impact of the Gospel, I don't just mean the impact of the Gospel to save souls. In the Great Commission. You know, we always look at you know, where to go and make disciples of you know, Panta tamee, every people group go to make disciples of all peoples, doing what baptizing them and the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and then doing what else, teaching them to observe all the things that I've commanded you folks, there are implications of the Gospel that go beyond salvation, even to the building of culture. For a long time people have tried to convince them. That's the great chasm between the advancements in the West and the advancements in the rest of the world was the amount of melanin that people have in their skin. Newsflash, the West is not advanced because it's white. It's advanced because in the providence of God. That's where the Gospel landed and took root. Amen and praise God for it. It has nothing to do with black people being inferior to white people, or brown people or any other colored people being inferior. It has to do with the fact that the Gospel landed and took root, and cultures were built around the ideas of the gospel. Trace the gospel, and you trace the advancement of man, the freedom of man. The Gospel is taking here. The Gospel is changing things here. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have passed away, New things have come. That changes the way he walks and talks. That changes the way he loves his wife. That changes the way he loves his children. That changes the way he studies. That changes the way he acts on his job. That changes the way he governs. It changes everything. And the full story has not yet been told. The defeat of the enemy has not yet been realized. That's something that God is going to do. Amen, But it hasn't happened yet. Do you know what that means? That all of these other things that are yet to come, we will fight for tooth And now we are in the midst of a spiritual battle. Why remember verses one through tim God has been faithful over the last twenty five years. A man, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord for what he's done. God has been faithful today. Yes, he is, God is going to be faithful in the future. There's work yet to be done. Yet the work is to be done among dead men who live in a dead world under the influence of Satan himself, whose flesh craves all things dead, which means anything that will be accomplished from here on out will also be accomplished by the faithfulness of God himself. We don't look back at the faithfulness of God in the past, and we don't look at the faithfulness of God in the present, so that we can go forward and presume upon God in the future. We look back at the faithfulness of God in the past, and we look at the faithfulness of God in the present, so that it drives us to our knees, knowing that anything else that is to come is also going to be accomplished by and reliant upon the faithfulness of God in the future. It humbles us. Reform theology ought to humble us. Arrogant Calvinist ought to be an oxymoron. Amen. I'm convinced that arrogant Calvinist are the ones who have not yet come to a full understanding of the doctrines of Grace, and more importantly, reform theology as a whole, because when you get the big picture, it does not puff you up with pride. It crushes you under the weight of the majesty and glory of an almighty, sovereign God. God has been good for twenty five years in Zambia, and for that we give him thanks. God is being good even today in Zembya, and for that we give him praise, and we believe by God's grace, and we trust that by God's mercy, he will be good in the future in Zambia. And for that we have much hope my life and I still go to our favorite restaurant, and every time we do, it humbles us. It humbles us and reminds us that we cannot presume upon God. We still love to travel in Europe and see the great cathedrals and imagine what it was like when the greats of old were sundering the Gospel throughout the land. Who still like to visit those great institutions of higher learning and remember that it was God who led men to establish them for His glory. But whether we're at our favorite restaurant that used to be a charge, some ancient cathedral has turned into a museum or some institution of higher learning that used to exist solely to bring glory and honor to God and train men and women for His service, but now is filled with the enemies of God who spew venom in class after class after class. What it does is it reminds us that there but for the grace of God, don't we be thankful to God for his faithfulness in the past. Give praise to God for his faithfulness in the present, and hold on to God in hope for his faithfulness in the future. Let's pray God, our father, would bow before you in great humility and thanksgiving for your faithfulness over the years, and recognizing your faithfulness even now, and recognizing that our only hope is your faithfulness in the future. Thank you for the privilege of gathering here this week to remember and be reminded, for it is good to do so. How many times in your word do you say, remind them of these things? It does not trouble me to remind you again of these things. Remind us, remind us, remind us, remind us so that we might be grateful, remind us so that we might have hope. Remind us so that when the days yet dark, we might be spurred on yet again. Remind us so that when we cannot understand what it is that you are doing, how it is that you are doing it, or why it is that you were doing it, we can remember that you are the same good God that you have always been. Remind us that as churches are planted, buildings are built, and institutions established, that the only guarantee of faithfulness is the Gospel and the commitment there too. Grant by your grace that this would mark us. Lord. We ask all these things, Believe all these things, Hope all these things, and that name that is above every name, that name at which every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, in the name of Jesus the faithful One. Amen.