Father in heaven, we give you praise for all that you've given
us already this day. Thank you for causing us to
rise, for the grace to breathe, for the grace to think and to
feel. Thank you for opening our ears
and our eyes. And we pray, Holy Spirit, that
you would continue to illuminate these words, that we would
receive them, be fed by them, be transformed by them all for your
glory. And by your grace, we pray in
the name of Jesus. Amen.
This morning I'm going to continue preaching through the
early parts of Ephesians this very long, beautiful, majestic
sentence that Paul was carried along to write.
I'm going to begin at verse 5 and read through verse 7.
Paul writes in love. He predestined us for adoption
to himself 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 and the beloved in Him.
We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our
trespasses according to the riches of His grace.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Please be seated if you have not been here the last couple of
weeks. We have been studying the
doctrine of Election, the doctrine of predestination, that
complex, beautiful, encouraging reality some of you were exposed
to for the first time. Others of you have been in this
a long time. There are many different
questions that come for just a couple of minutes.
I want to address some of them before we move into the meat of
this particular sermon. One of the questions that comes
from those who are having a hard time understanding the doctrine
of predestination and election is then, if that's true, if God
already knows, why would we do evangelism?
Why would we share our faith? Well, two reasons come to mind
quickly. Number one, we should always do
what God commands us to do, and he clearly commands us to do it.
The reason he commands us to do it is the God who ordains all
things. All things, the primary cause of
everything, also ordains the means by which they happen.
He ordains the secondary causes in God's normative way of having
his good news. His gospel extended is by using
his Saints in places of work and recreation, in our homes, in our
neighborhoods, in our schools, praying for those who we don't
think know the Lord, telling them the truth of Jesus, and
then the gospel goes forth. Those who really cling to these
truth, these biblical doctrines of election and predecessor,
should be the most zealous for evangelism and the most
confident. Another question is, if God
already knows and he's already chosen me, then why would I need
to live a certain way? If it doesn't really matter, why
don't I just live any way I want?
Well, if that's the way you're thinking and it's actually the
way you're living, I would not have great confidence that you
truly are one of his, at least not yet.
That hasn't been revealed because those who have been
saved, those whose names are in the book of life, those to whom
He's revealed His grace, and you've received Christ, your
heart was changed. That which you could not have
wanted to bring Him glory, that which you could not have desired
to bring Him play praise, that which you would never have
wanted to live a life of holiness for His glory wouldn't
be true. All who are in Christ this side
of heaven still fight the flesh, still have temptations like the
rest of the world, but our desire is to mortify the flesh,
to mortify sin, to live for his glory.
That's why Paul in Ephesians 5 is going to say, But among you,
those are the Saints, the followers of Christ.
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality
or of impurity or of greed, for these are improper for God's
holy people. We're going to talk about being
holy and blameless in a moment. Another one, which I addressed
last week is, are we not just puppets and pawns?
I'll encourage you to go back and listen to last week's sermon
and then one final one. We'll be answering more as we
move through the letter. It doesn't seem fair if God
chooses some and passes over others.
It just doesn't seem fair. I understand that.
I wrestled with that and felt that a long time.
Here's the truth. God showing grace to some
doesn't ever show grace or owe grace to all.
Grace is never to be something that's required of God.
It wouldn't be grace. And so God, in His wisdom and by
His design, when He chose to share grace with some, that was
not something He had to do. In fact, if we want to talk
about being fair, none of us would have received it.
We all would receive what we deserve.
That is to be separated from Him forever.
I know these questions are complex and they're real.
That's why we go back to the Word.
We stay in the Word, and we surrender to the Word.
The way we surrender is by actually listening to what Paul
says, particularly in verses 5 and 6.
Listen to this, the second part of verse 5.
He says according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of
His glorious grace. Every time we look at God's
Word, everything that God ever has done and is doing and will
do, it is always to the purpose of His will, it is always to the
purpose of His glory. We don't always understand it.
We don't always like it, but it's always to His glory and to
the praise of His glory, fulfilling the purpose of His
will. And the reason that matters is
because we're surrendering to the One who is far greater,
perfectly wise, who knows exactly what is happening.
All for His glory and our good this morning.
The way I would like to look at the verses before us is to
highlight these themes. First His will, His glory and
His grace. Then I want to talk once again
about adoption and then finally redemption as you see those
words in this passage. And here's the way I would like
to do it. Many years ago, in the mid 90s,
I became quite enamoured with studying the Civil War.
I read as many books as I could and then I decided to go to one
of the battlefields. The one I chose was Gettysburg,
and the reason I chose Gettysburg was because
Christina's dad, my wife's dad, lived about 45 minutes from
there. They had a farm.
And so the first time we went, Dave and I drove 45 minutes to
Gettysburg and we spent about 3 hours only going to the museum
and seeing some of the sights. We read the plaques, we read the
things that were written. A few years later we went back
again and this time we got a cassette or tuned to the radio,
I don't remember which one. It was the 90s though.
So the kiss that was possible. And we drove through this
enormous battlefield, stopping where the tape told us to stop
and listening to the narrator. It was a much better way to see
the field. We began to see the scope and
scan of the war, the strategies from both sides.
But we still knew we needed more.
And so the next time what we did was we hired a guide, and this
guide rode with us in the car. We took a little bit longer at
each place. And then the fourth time we
went, we hired a guide who specialized in one particular
part of the battle and one particular part of the war, and
that was the battle of Little Round Top.
For 8 hours we listened to this expert, one on two telling us
what happened and they're standing on that ground where
between July 1st and 3rd in 1860, three 50,000 men lost
their lives. 50,000 you just looked knowing that they were
here. I'm standing where there was
blood. This was amazing for us to see
the depth of which we dug into understanding it was profound.
Well, that's what we do with the Word of God.
We come to saving faith and we know a little bit about the big
picture, but then as we grow in our faith, we begin to
understand more of who He is. We actually began to realize
that the Bible's really not about us.
It's not about our having a book that just guides us through each
day. It's not the best motivational
book that's ever been written on its purpose.
Its purpose is about the glory of God in the glory of God and
redeeming his people. It's the history of redemption.
And as we read it, we begin to understand new things.
Just after the last hour, a woman in her late 70s or early
80s came up to me, a dear sister in Christ, and she said the last
three weeks I have never heard these things.
I did not know they were in the Bible.
Well, she's being exposed to a part of the Bible that is God's
Word and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and
training in righteousness. And in the season, we are
focused on one particular book and we're taking our time to
move through it. Some of you want to go deeper
and there's books available, resources available, and you
can. But it's all for one purpose.
And that one purpose is always ultimately the glory of God, the
glory of God, and the grace of God.
Let me share something about these things for a few minutes.
According to the purpose of His will.
Verse 5, verse 6, to the praise of His glorious grace.
God's grace and God's glory are two remarkable themes that
anchor us as His followers. But what do we mean when we
speak about God's glory? It's one of those words that you
hear all the time, much like the word redemption, which we'll get
to in a moment. Martin Lloyd Jones, speaking
about God's glory, said this. It is almost impossible to say
anything about the glory of God because our language, our
terminology, our words are quite inadequate to convey any true
sense of it. So how can we?
Well, we need to take God at his Word.
God's word reveals his attributes and character.
It reveals his work in creation and care.
It reveals his wisdom and his works.
God's Word tells us of God's beauty.
And as I list these words, every one of these words describe God
in perfection. What that means is when I say
God is beautiful, He's perfectly beautiful.
There is not one aspect of God that is not beautiful.
There's not one aspect of his radiance that isn't perfect.
He's brighter than the sun. Our God is majestic.
He is full of splendor. He is great, and the psalmist
says his greatness is unsearchable.
I will extol you, my God and King, and praise your name
forever and ever. For great is the Lord, and his
greatness is unsearchable. We can't say that about anyone
or anything else. His might, His power, His power
immeasurable. He's eternal.
The word glory means wait. When we think of God, we leave
an astonishment of who He is. When we come to the doctrines of
salvation presented here, the first and greatest truth
concerning salvation is that it is a revelation of the glory of
God to the praise of His glorious grace.
When we think of God's grace as Christians, we realize His Word
tells us it's all grace from the beginning to the end.
In the middle, it's always God's grace.
RC Sproul says it this way. He says, when I was studying
theology at the doctoral level in Europe at the Free University
of Amsterdam, our professor GC Burkhauer once made this
statement when we were studying systematic theology.
He said, gentlemen, the essence of theology is grace, Sproul
writes. I think he's right.
When we get to the very essence of what our study of theology
is, we are studying the grace of God because it's by God's grace
that we are Christians in the 1st place.
Now we say Amen to that, but do we really go and trace back the
depth of what that means? That it has nothing to do with
us? God did not look into the future
and say they're going to be better than someone else.
It's His grace from beginning to end.
It's by God's grace that we even draw a breath at this very
moment. And it's by God's grace that we
receive every benefit from His hand from the beginning to the
end. The whole Christian life is
grace. And that's why I say that the
more we study grace, the more we see grace and the more we see
the need for grace. I remember being in seminary,
and my closest friend now was the one I despise the most at
the beginning. You're not supposed to despise
people in seminary, but I got to be honest, I did.
I've said this before, his name's Daniel and it was because
during one of the lectures, maybe the 10th lecture on grace,
he literally with great confidence said professor, all
due respect, we get grace. Can we move on to something else
now? What's the professor thinking?
I think we let a non believer into the seminary, He doesn't
get grace. We are never going to fully get
grace, and grace is the thing that should refute the old idea
that those who believe in these doctrines of grace are the
frozen chosen. Friends, I hate that phrase.
It should never be true of us. Those who get grace knowing they
need more grace should be the most humble, the most sober, and
the most on fire for the Lord in their worship, in their work, in
their homes, in their recreation, constantly ready to
give the doxology to the praise of His glorious grace.
Our salvation, which is by grace alone, is also to God's glory
alone. We think it's all about us and
it's not. It's all about Him, but in his
plan to save us, he brings us by grace into this glorious
reality. Richard Phillips says it's not
primarily about us. God saved us with a higher
motive than just our blessing. God has so arranged salvation to
bring us the highest possible blessing and Himself the highest
possible praise, both of which result only through the glory of
His grace. Glory and grace are a big deal.
The essential nature of God is His glory.
It's that which makes God, God. So in this passage we come to
this phrase in verse 5. In love, He predestined us for
adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.
The verse before it, if you remember from last week, Paul
tells us that we were chosen before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and blameless.
I want to go back to these two words for a moment as we enter
into the theme of adoption again.
The word holy means to be set apart, and God alone is holy.
He's set apart and He is holy in every part of who He is.
He's holy in His grace and His mercy and His revelation.
He is holy in his wrath and His justice and His love, meaning
there's no imperfection. There's nothing that can be
added or taken away. He's holy.
He's set apart. Jesus, our Savior, God, true
God, is blameless. Paul, early in the letter,
speaking to this young church, says he chose us, and he tells
us why and for what purpose that we should be home, holy and
blameless before Him. How can we be holy and
blameless? Because we're not.
Something has to happen first. There has to be something that
is reduced, there has to be something that is taken away,
something that is not just reduced but entirely removed.
And that is our sin. The word blemish is really where
the word that we get blameless comes from and we are full of
blemishes. So God in his mercy takes that
account of our blemishes, every one of them, and he deletes it.
He empties it. He removes it so that if we were
looking at a statement, an accounting statement where it
said blemishes, where it said sins, they're removed.
But something is added. He doesn't just leave it at
neutral. And what is added and received
is the righteousness of Christ. Why does that matter?
Well, the only way we could become those who are holy and
blameless before Him is through Christ.
And this is where we move into the theme of adoption.
Last week in our profession of faith, we quoted from the
Westminster Confession, chapter 12.
What speaks of our adoption? It speaks of the privileges we
have. It speaks of the protection we
receive, the provision from the Lord, and that we're going to
never be cast off. Adoption is a big theme.
If you weren't here for Winter Grace, I would encourage you to
go onto our website and listen to David Gibson.
One of the themes of his message was be who you are.
But in order to be who you are, you have to know who you are.
Couple of weeks ago, my daughter was in a musical called Mary
Poppins. You've heard of it.
And she was Mary Poppins. And it was fantastic.
Six shows, watching your own daughter perform.
And she was remarkable. After the shows, as we would
greet her and the other cast members, people would come up to
give her encouragement. And then they would look at me
and say, are you her father sometimes?
Are you her grandfather? And I would simply say, yes,
that's my daughter. Where did she learn to sing?
Did she get that from you? What about her, her acting?
No, no, no, not from me. I peeked in 3rd grade, 3rd
grade. I was Santa Claus in the
Christmas play, and then in the spring play, I was an owl.
I have no idea what my lines were as Santa Claus, but I
remember my lines as the owl. Who, who, Who are you?
That was it, over and over again.
But you know what? That is the most important
question next to who is God? And who does God say you are in
Christ? And who does God say you are
apart from Christ? David Gibson said over and over
again. Be who you are, but who are you?
Are you in Christ? Well, if you're in Christ, that
means you are his adopted child. The passage says in verse 5.
He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus
Christ. You are His.
That same year, third grade, I met for the first time, an
orphan. His name was Michael Garcia.
He was in foster care in Oklahoma City at that time.
On Wednesday night, the ABC affiliate, the news station had
something called Wednesday's Child.
And Wednesday's child was always a three to five minute video of
a boy or girl who was in the system who needed someone to
adopt them. Michael was my friend.
I begged my parents to adopt him.
We were one small house, 5 energetic children, three small
bedrooms, 1 bathroom and my parents had huge hearts, but
they also had wisdom. They knew it would not be good
for him. But I wanted my mom and dad to
adopt him so much. One day he was adopted.
I never knew what became of him, but that was my first exposure
to adoption. Friends, this adoption by God is
what establishes your primary and permanent identity.
It's the one identity that you have forever.
If you're in Christ, you're a beloved child.
You're adopted by him. And what that means is that when
the Father sees you, because you've been adopted and Christ
is in you and you are in Christ, you are seen the same way the
Father sees the Son. It's remarkable.
The Son is blameless. The Son is holy because you're
his adopted son. You're the same friends.
This is what God's word is teaching us.
In November, someone in some part of the country reached out
to one of my children, my oldest daughter, Kara, and said, I
think we might have a family connection.
This is an older man who said, I'm just trying to put things in
order and I want to understand where my relatives are.
Would your dad be willing to take the DNA test so we could
just see? So I did it.
I took the Q-tip. I swabbed each cheek and I sent
it in. Don't know what's going to
happen, but I know this much. It's not going to say I was
adopted and I was. All who are in Christ are
adopted. It's going to tell me wonderful
things about our history. I can't wait to see it, but it's
not going to go far back, not like this.
And whatever is on there is neat is it will be.
It's not going to be permanent and it's not going to be
primary. That's already been decided.
But the cost of being before him is blameless and holy.
The cost of being adopted as one of his children was that
redemption had to take place. So it's been the last remaining
time in this word redemption. The word redemption is a
biblical word that runs through Scripture, but it's also one of
those words like glory, that if we're not careful, it loses its
meaning. And significant, whenever we see
the word redemption, are we seeing the word redemption?
It always supposes that there is bondage, captivity and
enslavement present. So immediately in the Old
Testament you think of the people of God, the nation of
Israel. They're held by the nation of
Egypt as slaves. They are in bondage, they are
enslaved and they cannot get themselves out.
They cannot set themselves free. James Montgomery Boyce, Speaking
of how we are in bondage, made this parallel.
He said there's three ways for us to be in bondage, either born
into slavery, to have a military conquest where we're taken away
as slaves are to have debt so great that we can't pay it.
But the key reality is those who are in bondage, those who are
enslaved, those who are in captivity can't get themselves
out. So as it relates to sin, Boyce
says according to Psalm 51, we're all born in iniquity,
we're all born in sin. All of us have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God in terms of a military conquest.
We are conquered by Satan and his power constantly as we serve
him and slave to sin. And to speak of debts, all of
us, so many debts that we could never repay them.
So how could someone be set free?
There was only one way, and that would be that a ransom would be
paid. And this ransom had to be
according to the law. So it is with God as well.
That's why Jesus says in Mark 10:45 and in the book of
Matthew, he says the Son of Man did not come to be served, but
to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
The ransom meant in the Old Testament sacrificial system
that there would be a spotless substitute.
The blood of this spotless perfect substitute would be cut
and spilled. When that substitute took place,
then the wrath of God which was holy, the justice of God which
was holy, would be turned away from the Sinner.
The results would be forgiveness.
Jesus Christ, from the Old Testament prophesied and the New
Testament fulfilled, became that one true and final perfect
spotless sacrifice, perfect spotless substitute.
Hebrews 9/12 He Jesus entered once for all into the holy
places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but
by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
And So what that means is that if you're in Christ, your ransom
was Christ. His blood was shed for you, that
you could be His adopted son, His adopted daughter, that you
could stand in Christ before the living God, blameless and holy.
A number of years ago, my family had the opportunity to go with a
few other families from this church to the Holy Land to see
the Sea of Galilee, to see many of the sites where Jesus was
known to walk and perform miracles In many places.
They don't know if this is the exact site, but one of them that
is the exact site is the Garden of Gethsemane.
When I walked into the Garden of Gethsemane, which isn't that
large, and my children were with me, and my dear bride was with
me and other members from this church, we were standing there
on this ground and this was a ground that also received blood.
It was where somewhere in the proximity that we could see our
Savior 2000 years ago, knowing that it was the night for him to
become that ransom, knowing something of the cup that He was
being asked to drink, the cup of His Father's wrath because of
all your blemishes, all your sins and mine, He prayed to the
Father. Father, if you are willing, take
this cup from me. Yet not my will be done, but
yours. Isaiah tells us word for word
that it was the will of the Father to crush Him.
Why? For His glory, For the glory of
redemption. The only way His people could be
redeemed was if this perfect Lamb, His perfect righteous Son,
would drink the cup, which was the death that you and I deserve
to die. I want you to consider that
love, love so amazing, love so divine, demands my life, my
soul, my all. That's why the glory of God and
the grace of God anchor us and why He made us His own.
Think deeply this week on who you are.
Who are you? Are you in Christ?
Then pray God never let's these beautiful doctrines become stale
or your worship to look like you're 1 that barely knows what
you've been saved from. He saved you by grace and
nothing else, for His glory and nothing else.
Jesus, thank you for that gift. Thank you for carrying Paul
along Holy Spirit, to write these words that would encourage
us with the truth thousands of years later.
Thank you above all that those of us who are in Christ.
You're giving us eyes to see, and it was all by grace.
Fill our hearts and minds with Your glory.
May we even leave this day, not just finishing a service, but
walking out rejoicing to the praise of your glorious grace,
with which even this day you have blessed us in the beloved
we pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
Please stand.