Boldly Go

Jesus is the one who makes you accepted with the Holy God.


Scripture: Ephesians 1:6

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends, how are you? Doing alright? Well, bless your heart. I’m glad to be back with you and to share with you from God’s Word. These moments that I share with you are the highest point of any given day, I’ll tell you that. I just love to be with you and share the Word of God by way of radio. Thanks for being there on the listening end.

We’re in Ephesians 1, and Paul said that, “God has predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.” That’s about as far as we got the last time, wasn’t it? “Wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved one.” The focal point of the grace of God is your relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, people back up at that, because humanly, we don’t like to have to go through anybody else’s intermediary influence in order to prove our own worth. “Why,” a man said to me years ago, “Why should I get down on my knees and acknowledge that I’m a sinner and ask for forgiveness? Why should I have to do all that when I’m such a nice guy?” I cleaned up the statement a little bit, because he spiced it up with a little profanity, but the point was the same.

I shouldn’t have to get down and ask God to forgive me ’cause I’m a nice guy. That’s the problem, you see, that human nature faces and we have to admit it. Before we get anywhere with God, the only way to be accepted with a holy God, granted the fact that you and I are sinners, the Bible says “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Granted the fact that we have a sinful human nature, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, said Job. Granted the fact that we have all gone our own way deliberately, not only do we have a sinful nature, but we’ve deliberately sinned against God. Isaiah the prophet says, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way.” If you grant that that is so, then we need somebody to speak for us to a holy God, and hallelujah for the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is that somebody. John the apostle, writing his first letter, said, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Advocate means one called alongside to help, a person who is your spokesman, an ombudsman, so to speak. An advocate is one called alongside to help, and so we are accepted in the beloved one. Do you know about in-laws? [chuckle] Your son falls in love with a beautiful little gal and brings her home to introduce her to mother and dad and the family. Now, you’ve never laid eyes on this gal before, he met her when he was in college, but now he’s gonna bring her home and as they drive up to the front of the house and you see them get out of your boy’s car, and they come up toward the front door, there’s just a moment of apprehension. What will she be like? How will she act? Where is she from? What is the culture from which she comes? Does she know the Lord? Will she fit in our family? Will she feel at home with the way we live? All these questions and many more are turning around in your minds. Well, introductions are made and the atmosphere is a little stiff at first, and then she proves herself to be a very fine little girl in that she immediately heads for the kitchen with you and busies herself in being helpful without being asked.

You make a mental note, and you say, “This girl has learned how to work, I like that.” She isn’t a chatterbox but she talks interestingly when it’s time for her to speak, and when anyone asks her a question, she answers thoughtfully and intelligently. She makes friends with the small fry in the family. So you say to yourself, “Well, she isn’t stand-offish, and I like that.” When it comes time for family worship, she joins in the family prayers with a sincere and heartfelt prayer and you like that.

Well, it looks as though she has it made, doesn’t it? And your boy comes to you privately, and says, “Mom, how do you like her?” Now, do you go down the list of the things that impressed you? Do you say, “Well, son, she’s a fine girl, she seems to know how to work, she busied herself right away in the kitchen helping, she is intelligent and she spoke well and she’s friendly, she made friends with the rest of the family.” Do you go down all that whole list with him? Probably not, you may, but my guess is that you wouldn’t. You know what you have to say? You’re gonna look at your son, put both hands on his shoulders and say, “My boy. The main thing is if you really love her. If you love her and you’re going to marry her, then we’ll love her too, because she’s yours, and that makes her ours. If you love her we’ll love her too.” Isn’t that about what you’ll say, mother? I think so. Accepted in the beloved. Now, you and I don’t have much to commend us to Almighty God. We’re sinners by nature, and sinners by choice, and failure is the rule of life, for every son and daughter of Adam, we fall short, we come short, we miss the train.

It has already left when we arrive at the station, we have very little going for us so far as God’s eternal values are concerned. But the Lord Jesus comes down the stairways of the stars one day, lives that perfect life for 33 years and then dies a perfect atoning death on Calvary, as the the epitome and the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament pictures of redemption. Our Lord Jesus Christ in his sacrifice on the cross was God’s Passover lamb. Paul says, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” And the Lord Jesus in his sacrifice on Calvary was the fulfillment of all of the pictures and types that you find in the Old Testament, which pointed toward that day when the Messiah would come and suffer, and die and rise again, and so the Lord Jesus Christ is our sacrifice. Not only that, but he rose again to be our living Lord. It says he rose again for our justification, that is to say that yonder in the glory, He sits as a representative of all of those believers who have committed themselves in faith to Him, and so it is that Paul can say God has made us accepted in the beloved one.

Someone has said, “When God looks at you, He doesn’t see you, He looks at you through the work of Christ.” And you are imperfect, but God looks at you through the perfect savior. You are incomplete, but God looks at you through the complete Savior and the complete sacrifice. You have failure in your record, but God looks at you through the one who is a success, you are lacking in the attributes of holiness, love, and grace, and joy, and peace, and all the rest, but God looks at you through the one who is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He has everything and it’s all yours by faith, accepted in the beloved. You and I need someone to speak for us to a holy God and that someone, his name is Jesus, an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ, the righteous. Oh make much of the grace of God, make much of the grace of God. And day-by-day, go often to the mercy seat, and plead the merits of the blood of Christ and let Him lather, cleanse, wash away your sins and the stain of them and send you on your way once again, rejoicing that you’re accepted in the beloved. Dear friend, the joy of knowing that Jesus is all that you need to get in touch with Almighty God is one of the greatest joys you will ever have in all of your life.

As you bow today in prayer long through the day or the night, as the case may be, make much of the fact that there is someone in the glory right now who knows your name, who cares about you. The Bible says, “Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you,” someone who knows your name and who cares about you and who is able to help you. “He is able,” it says, “To save them that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to intercede for them,” so he knows you, he cares about you and he’s able to help. His name, his name is Jesus. He is the one that makes you accepted in the beloved one. Isn’t that great? God said, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him.” And so exalt the Lord Jesus, in your life and in your testimony and in your plans and in your words and in all of your relationships with people make much of the Savior because he is the one that gives you acceptance in the presence of God.

I have tried on occasion to get in to the presence of great people. I can recall on one occasion when I was stranded in a certain city in the Philippine islands. The airplane that had brought us to that place had broken down just upon landing. It lost a motor, as a matter of fact, just at the time it was landing and we had to come in with one motor. It was an old DC-3, we came in on one motor and a wing and a prayer. Well, to repair that ancient plane was going to take two or three days, and I was stranded in the place and I looked in vain for some way to get off that island and to my next preaching engagement. I heard that there was a big ceremonial banquet being held for a man who had been Commissioner of the Philippine Islands in years before. And so, I went through the side door and made my way into that banquet hall, and cautiously made my way right up to the speaker’s table, and stood behind this very famous man and said, “Sir, may I have a word with you?” I said, “I’m representing the missionary work out here and I happen to be stranded because our airplane broke down. I wonder if I could hitch a ride with you in your plane when you leave this evening.”

And very brusquely, he ordered me away. He said, “There’s too many of you freeloaders around anyway,” he said. “Get lost.” Well, that was the end of that. Incidentally, God used those two or three days of delay to refresh my soul and send me back to the schedule of meetings refreshed and blessed. And I found out later that the meetings I had missed they hadn’t even missed me, because the rest of my team was there, and they took care of it beautifully. [chuckle] When God delays you He has not made a mistake. Well, on the other hand, there was a day when I was ushered into the Oval Office at the White House and I was there, not because of what I was, but because someone else had made it possible for me to be invited, and I stood beside the person who was then President of the United States, Gerry Ford. I had my picture taken with him, and he shook my hand warmly and wished me well and all of that.

We had a delightful few moments together and Bob Cook was there. Not because I was anything, but because somebody else had opened the door for me. You know that. Oh, today, my friend, you can go right straight into the throne room of heaven. Jesus is there and He opens the door and He says, “Come on in. Let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need, come on in.” Jesus is the one who makes you accepted with a holy God, praise the Lord for that.

Dear Father, today, we thank thee for Jesus, who makes us accepted with Thee, may we honor and glorify Him every step of the way, Amen.

Until I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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