In Christ #3

It is my prayer that by this time you are closer to the Lord.

Illus: We do not have to be like the man who had been hired to paint lines on the highway. As the story goes, this man’s job consisted of painting the white lines in the highway.

-The first day he painted three miles of lines.

-The second day he painted two miles of lines.

-The third day he painted one mile of lines.

His boss called him and told him, “Look, I need to talk to you about your job performance.” He continued,

- “The first day you painted three miles of lines, and that was good!”

- “The second day you painted two miles of lines, and that was not bad.”

- “The third day you only painted one mile of lines, and that was not good!

How do you explain that each day you are doing less?”

The man looked at his boss and replied, “I can explain that very easily. Each day I am getting farther and farther from the paint bucket.”

We trust that you are getting closer and closer to the Lord as you are learning from this book of Ephesians about THE RICHES WE HAVE IN CHRIST!

Look at Ephesians 1:3. We read, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places IN CHRIST.”

That is, the child of God who is IN CHRIST has great RICHES IN CHRIST!

• In verse 1 we see we are SAINTS of God.

• In verse 4 we are CHOSEN of God.

• In verse 5 those who have accepted Christ as Savior are PREDESTINED “...unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself...” That is, to be sons of God.

And by the time Paul penned verse 6 he had to stop and just praise God for the riches we have IN CHRIST.

Look at verse 6. We read, “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

I am convinced that the reason many churches do not have more PRAISE in their worship services is because the SAINTS of God DO NOT KNOW the riches they have IN CHRIST!

The devil has outsmarted them.

Illus: We are reminded of the story of the farmer whose rooster had done a great job but was getting old, so the farmer decided he perhaps had better replace him with one who was younger. Two times already the farmer had attempted to integrate a younger rooster in with the chickens, but both had not worked out.

So, finally the old farmer found another young rooster he felt might take the place of his old faithful rooster. He brought the young rooster and threw him in the chicken yard. All the hens watched the young rooster strut around the chicken yard.

The old rooster walked over to this fine-looking young rooster and said, “You might be younger, but you will never be as-

- good as I am, or as

- smart as I am!”

The young rooster took offense to what he said and bragged,

- “I am twice the rooster you are!”

- “I am twice as smart as you are!”

The old rooster said, “If you are so good and so smart, prove it!” The young rooster asked, “How can I prove it?”

The old rooster said, “Very easily. We will run around this chicken yard ten times and the rooster that is ahead at the end will prove he is the best.”

The young rooster said, “That won’t even be a contest, but to make it interesting I will give you half a lap head start.”

All the hens got in the middle of the chicken yard and the race started.

• After the first lap the young rooster was gaining, but all the hens were cackling for the old rooster.

• After the second lap he had gained some more on the old rooster, but still the hens were cackling for the old rooster.

• After the third lap he had gained some more.

• In the fourth lap he had almost caught up to the old rooster. The old hens were cackling as hard as they could cackle for the old rooster.

• After the fifth lap he was right behind the old rooster and the hens were going wild because they could tell their old rooster was getting tired.

The old farmer heard all the commotion and he thought it was a fox in the hen house. He and his wife ran out to the chicken yard and he saw that old rooster running as fast as he could away from that young rooster.

The farmer raised his shotgun to his shoulder, aimed at the young rooster and shot him - dead! The farmer’s wife asked, “Pa, why did you shoot that young rooster?” He said, “For the same reason I shot the two before him. I refuse to have a homosexual rooster in my chicken coop!”