There's an exercise that you can do with a group of people if you
want to demonstrate the significance of the identity
that we gain from our group relationships.
We did this with our elders recently.
We gain significant portions of our identity from the groups
that we belong to. And the exercise is this.
You have someone introduce themselves, preferably to a
group of people. And the rule is you cannot
appeal to any group identities, any shared identities.
And what normally happens is it goes something like this.
An individual will introduce himself and say, my name is
Aaron Hembree. And you stop him immediately and
you say him, sorry, Hembree is a group identity.
Try again. And it's that point they begin
to get apprehensive and they start to think this is going to
be difficult. And as you're thinking, you say
I can't confess that I'm a father, I can't confess that I
go to Heritage Church, I can't confess I'm an American, I can't
confess I'm a New Orleans Saints fan.
All of these are group identities.
And so you're stuck saying something like my name is Aaron
and I like enchiladas. And that's about as deep as you
can get without people, without groups.
And so if you take away or strip away all of your group
identities, you, you take away all of your shared meaning and
purpose, you take all away your security and your sense of
belonging. It gets wrapped up into this.
And that's how it's meant to be with you as an individual.
You are designed and created for community.
You're designed to belong and you get satisfaction from being
included. And Paul began last week.
If you want to go and turn to Ephesians 1 and you can look at
verses one to two where we looked last week and he made a
statement about group identities and it's amazing he only
mentions 1 for himself and for his recipients because there's
only one that takes his focus and attention because there's
only one that's of any eternal significance.
It's the Christians group identity as being found in Jesus
Christ. That was all of it.
Look at how we started the book, verse one, Paul, an apostle of
Christ Jesus to the Saints in Christ Jesus, grace to you and
peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he continues in verse
4. We were chosen in him.
He predestined us through him. He blessed us in him.
We have redemption through him. He set forth his purpose in him.
And what he begins in the beginning, he never lets up.
He starts at the beginning. He says your identity is in
Christ and throughout the book some 35 times he appeals to your
new identity in Jesus. So there's a a lot of exemplary
and noteworthy places that Paul could have started.
He has a lot of really incredible group identities.
He could have started saying, I'm Paul, a Roman citizen, which
if you're in the the Roman Empire, that's that's a big
deal. He could have started saying I
am a Greek educated scholar or I am a Pharisee.
What a privilege that could have been, or I'm Paul, a Hebrew of
Hebrews, Ron Paul of the tribe of Benjamin.
These are all of his group identities.
He says those aren't of eternal weight and significance.
The most important thing you need to know about me is that I
am Paul, an apostle by the will of God.
I belong to Jesus. I'm found in Jesus.
And now for the next two weeks, Paul wants to show you how you
came to be in this privileged position that you're found in
now. Privilege of being in Christ
Church. How did you get there?
And there's 12 verses from verse 3 to verse 14, and they're going
to show you going back to the foundations of your faith.
This is absolutely essential, a bedrock principle of your faith,
how you came to be in Christ, how you came to be a Christian
in his church. And you get to see in this a
glimpse of the magnitude of God's grace, what it means when
God says, I have been gracious to you, what it means when he
said in verse 2, grace to you and peace from God our Father.
You see it's an ocean of grace, It's an ocean of meaning and
understanding. It's a it's a deep well of
theology. And when you look and you see
exactly what God the Father has done, what Jesus, the the only
son of God, the only begotten Son of God has done what the
Holy Spirit has done. Your only response is verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It gives you your response ahead of time.
Read it with me. Ephesians one we're going to be
in verses 3:00 to 6:00 today where Paul says blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he
chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we
should be holy and blameless before him 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 blessed us in the beloved.
So I wanted to introduce this section on Ephesians 1/3 to 14
by showing you that these verses contain some of the richest.
This will be one of the richest theological truths of the Bible,
and Paul is going to give these to you for you to collect and to
cherish like treasure to remember frequently.
And he says your identity is found in Jesus Christ.
If you skip to Ephesians 4, stealing time from future
sermons, he says we're united in one body and in one spirit, just
as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call.
1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
And he says, and that identity, this shared identity was
solidified in eternity past before the foundation of the
world. He says your salvation is a
trinitarian work that started before time did.
Or at least time as we know it. And he says that this teaching
will continue forever. So important to understand.
Like like any. Doctrine.
Your salvation is from God the Father, Your salvation is
through God the Son, and that redemption is applied by the
Holy Spirit. And each member of the Godhead
is working in, in, in harmony and in unity to bring about your
salvation past, present, and future.
God has been working. He decreed it, He accomplished
it, and He applied your salvation.
And you go to verses 3 to 6. That's our subject for today.
He shines the spotlight on God the Father.
And eternity passed. And he says He has predestined
you. The Father did before time began
and next week will be verses 7 to 10 and he's going to shine a
spotlight on God the Son and he's going to say he redeemed
you in time. He bought you.
And then he's going to shine the spotlight.
And then on the next week on the Holy Spirit looking to eternity,
future, from everlasting to everlasting.
He is God, He is your God. And he's going to say, the Holy
Spirit has sealed you as a promise, the down payment of
your inheritance until you acquire possession of it to the
praise of his glorious grace. And the rich theological truth I
want you to see first is the perfect unity of the Trinity as
they work to accomplish your salvation.
And this, this is the great demonstration, the greatest
argument, the greatest truth that came to us from John Owen.
He was just reading Ephesians One.
This is the premier passage he went to to show this truth.
He says there's harmony in the work of the persons of the
Trinity. God the Father is working in
harmony with the Son, who's working in harmony with the
Spirit because they're one God existing in three persons.
And so we could say it this way, Who in this life possesses God's
Holy Spirit? What what people is the Spirit
dwelling covenantily with them? Who possesses the Holy Spirit?
Who did God the Father predestined in eternity past?
Or if you've got the King James Version predestinate in eternity
past, who did Jesus Christ die for?
And we have to say, did God the Father predestined one group of
people? God the Son die for a separate
group of people. And the Holy Spirit indwell a
third group of people. Or is there complete harmony and
unity? Paul is teaching in these verses
that those the Father chose in eternity past, the Son came to
seek and to save and to purchase in time his church.
And those whom the Son purchased in time the Spirit sealed for
all eternity as adoption adopted you into the Godhead, into this
family, into this baptism, there is perfect harmony and unity.
And we we, we ask what is this group of people?
And the answer is they're the beloved.
They are the chosen ones. Paul calls them in verse one we
saw last week, the Hagias, the chosen ones, the set apart ones,
they are the elect as Paul calls them, the chosen.
And there was a definite plan made in eternity past.
There was a decree that was made from all eternity that salvation
would be achieved for the church.
And if you possess the Spirit of God, this truth is glorious.
It is because God the Father chose you.
And if you have the Spirit of God, it is because Jesus Christ
died for you and redeemed you. You belong to God and you belong
to His church. You've been set aside for His
purposes. And he says this is the most
important thing about you. This is the most important part
of your identity is that this is the truth that you belong to.
He says it was established beforehand.
Look at verse 4 of Ephesians 1. You were chosen before the
foundation of the world. Verse 5 In love you were
predestined for adoption. And you come to verses 3 to 6.
Paul finally begins to unpack this glorious truth, His
sovereignty in your salvation and his purpose for your
salvation. That's what he's showing you.
And he says not only that you were chosen, but he says when
you were chosen, why you were chosen, the motivation for his
choosing you, the goal that he chose you for He.
It's all here. And to understand.
This spiritual blessing, he says this, this is the spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places, and you get a glimpse into what
they are and to understand what the spiritual blessings are.
Verses 3 to 6 say we'll take it in two parts, His sovereignty
for your salvation, His purposes for your salvation.
Said a little more specifically, we'll say God's election
highlights His sovereignty and your salvation, and God's
predestination highlights his purpose for your salvation.
And we'll begin here. God's election highlights his
sovereignty and your salvation and, and these verses 3 to 14
and all of three to 14, Paul's unpacking how you came to be in
this new identity. And when he does it, he does it
in one sentence. Many of you already know this 3
to 14 is 1 long sentence. We say it's a sentence begun in
eternity. And the original autograph of
Paul and his original manuscript.
These 12 verses are again one sentence, 202 words.
It's 26 lines of Greek text in the United Bible Society's Greek
Testament. And he just keeps heaping up
prepositional phrases to make it go on and on and on. 32
prepositional phrases in one sentence.
Have you ever done that before? Your group, your grammar
teacher, your English teacher would cringe.
But he does this. He goes on and on for adoption
through Jesus Christ to himself, in accordance with his goodwill
and pleasure, to the praise of his glory.
And I think that he's, he's heaping up all this beautiful
language and all of this prepositional phrases because
this truth is like a diamond and it deserves a beautiful setting.
You say this is some of the richest Trinitarian theology
that exists anywhere in the Bible.
And so we're going to magnify it.
We're going to emphasize it. It's worthy of a glorious garb.
And so he's dressing it up. And then these. 12 verses.
This is so significant to know there's only one verb in all 202
words that is not tied grammatically to some other
element. It is the premier word.
It gets conceptual priority. All the the rest of these
prepositional phrases, all these words hinge on this one verb.
The word is in verse 4. God chose.
The word is chose, and it says that God chose us, His church in
him. God chose us in him.
So if you want to know how you came to be included in God's
church or even this local fellowship, people want to know
how God's wrath has been turned away and what it means that
grace has been poured out on you and peace with God has been
achieved and how you came into this new identity.
Paul says here it is. You were chosen.
He chose you and he did it in Christ.
The word choose is the word elect.
It's this word here, Excel exoto.
It means to choose or to select one out of many options.
And when it's used in the middle voice, it's used like I got this
here. It says he chose for himself.
That's how it's translated that way.
He chose for himself. And those who are chosen are
called the elect. And in Scripture, the doctrine
is so warm. The elect is a synonym or a
synonym for the elect is the beloved.
To be elect is to be beloved and to be beloved or loved by God is
to be chosen. And you can see this has been
all throughout the Scripture in the Old Testament where election
was was not for every tribe and tongue and nation.
You see glimpses of that as people like Rahab kind of come
into the fold. But election was for a specific
racial ethnic group, Israel. And it says of Israel, Israel
was chosen and Israel was beloved of God.
And it says that Abraham and Moses and Solomon were called
beloved of God. And Jesus, we saw last week, was
the premier apostle. He is the apostle.
And now we see he is the chosen one.
He's the elect. The elect is Jesus, and he's
also God's beloved. Remember the two times that God
comes down in the glory? Cloud at the Mount of
Transfiguration in the baptismal.
What does he say? This is my beloved son, in whom
I am well pleased. This is my chosen.
And now here he calls Jesus again in the beloved.
We're adopted in the beloved. But now he calls you beloved.
And we confess, we sing the song together.
I'm the beloved you've bought me with your blood, and on my hand
you've written out my name. I'm your beloved, the one the
Father loves. Mercy has defeated all my shame.
This is what we're. This is what we're learning
about. You see it straight from the
Scripture here. And we see the church began not
by our initiative. The church began with God's
purpose of election. We say that no.
Man is the author of the church. No man was the author of Israel.
We did not appoint ourselves to this.
Israel was chosen. We've already read it in
Deuteronomy 7. Not by any merit.
Not because they were more than all the peoples.
Not because they were so impressive.
Actually, because they were the least of all the.
Peoples and. You get a little bit of insight
into the purpose of his will. And he says in the New Testament
election continues to every tribe, tongue and nation.
People from every tribe, tongue and nation.
Not because of anything they did.
He says in order that his purposes of grace and election
might continue, it goes beyond ethnic and national borders.
And there's a paradox here that you have to understand.
It's not a puzzle to be solved or or Riddle to be solved.
He says God has given you the free exercise of your will and
yet you have to recognize your faith rests completely on the
work of God and not the unsteady foundation of anything that you
have done in yourself and you have to hold that together.
It's all according to His plan. His plan was set forth before
the foundation of the world. This is said all over the New
Testament. John 1516.
Jesus says you did not choose me, but I chose you and I
appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.
Paul says in Romans 829 for those whom he foreknew.
He also predestined that we should be conformed into the
image of God. We're always predestined unto
something. To be conformed into the image
of His Son. 2nd Thessalonians 213 God chose you to be saved
through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the
truth. Second Timothy 19 God saved us
and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but
because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in
Christ before the ages began. First Peter 1-2 To those who are
elect exiles according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
Acts 1348 That monumental time when the salvation is coming to
the Gentiles, Luke notes as many as were appointed to eternal
life believed so. God the Father foreknew you.
This is the truth. God the Father foreknew you.
Jesus redeemed you. God chose you.
This is amazing, Amazing Grace. And so Scripture doesn't just
tell us that we were chosen. Look to verse four.
He tells us when we were chosen, even as He chose us before the
foundation of the world. There's another glorious truth.
God's choice of His church happened before the foundation
of the world. That's a word that's used in
connection with a lot of themes in the Bible.
I think it's helpful to see what else was chosen before the
foundational of the world. John 1724 says that God's love
of Jesus has been from all eternity.
Because you loved me, he says, before the before the foundation
of the world you come to first Peter 120.
The purposes of God for Jesus Christ were established before
the foundation of the world. He was a land without blemish
and without spot, foreknown before the foundation of the
world. His purposes for His church come
from before time as we know it. Second Timothy 19, He saved us
and called us to a holy calling because of His own purposes and
grace which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began and
now has been manifested through the appearing of our Lord Jesus
Christ set on the horizon from all eternity, realized in time
by the appearing of Jesus Christ through belief in Him, through
faith, by grace. And you come to verses 4 to 5
and they're underlining the fact that there is no human merit in
salvation whatsoever. It's purely the work of God and
God alone. There's no historical
contingency because there was no history.
There's no human merit because there was no humanity to merit
anything. That's why Romans 9 says of
Jacob and Esau, though they were not yet born, though they had
done nothing good or bad in order that God's purpose of
election might continue. God chose, and we call this
sovereign grace more than when he chose us.
Verse four goes on to say what his motivation was, what what
was the motivation of God to choose his church?
And it comes at the very final words of verse 4, very simply in
love. In love He predestined us and we
confess first John 419. We love him because he first
loved us. He's the initiator of love.
He chose you in love. Another amazing theological
truth for you to collect and to know and to love is that in that
in this economy of salvation, when you shine the spotlight on
God the Father, you see his love.
And we all we think of Jesus as loving us, and of course he.
Does, he says over and over. I'm your friend, I love you, but
to highlight God the Father is to is to see the love of the
Trinity. This is why it says in John 316
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have what
everlasting life. God the Father loved you so much
that he sent his Son, and you come to the Trinitarian formula.
At the end of 2nd Corinthians 13, it says the love of the
Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit
be with you all. And so when it's attributing
attributes to to these persons of the Godhead, love always goes
to the Father. Doesn't mean the Son doesn't
love you, doesn't mean the Spirit doesn't love you.
It's the it's shining the spotlight on the Father's love.
Love was the motivation of God the Father to build His church.
And you go on. Romans, the book of Romans adds
to the list of motivations. There are many.
It says he desired for his purpose of election to continue.
He desired to show His wrath and to make known his power.
He desired to display His mercy, the vessels of mercy which he
prepared beforehand for glory. He wanted to show the riches of
His glory. He goes on and on all of my
motivations and here it highlights He did it in love.
Love was the initial motivation. It tells us when He chose us.
It told us what His motivation was.
But Ephesians here in verse 4 also tells us what His purpose
was. He had a goal for you when He
chose you, and the goal comes right here in order that you
should be holy and blameless. Ephesians 2 is going to add to
that and walk in all the good works that He also prepared for
you before the foundation of the earth.
You are to be holy and blameless.
God's choice of individuals has a goal, that you would imbue a
certain quality of life, that you would be a certain kind of
person. That's why he chose you.
Moral separation from the sinful world and act of love.
There's a negative and a positive here.
Moral separation from the world and act of love.
And the most beautiful place I know to go to illustrate this
would be James 127. What is pure and undefiled
religion? What is this pure and undefiled
Christianity before God the Father?
It says that you care for orphans and widows in their
affliction. Act of love, and then the part
that's always forgotten and keep yourself unstained from the
world, keeping yourself blameless.
Showing act of love, demonstrating the holiness of
God, demonstrating his ethics and his character.
That's why you were chosen. That's why we exist as a church,
to make Christ known, to show him, to show his love, to
proclaim his salvation. That's our group identity.
That's our goal. That's what we do as Christians.
We ask another question that this text can answer for us.
What kind of person understands the doctrine of election?
What kind of person is created when you understand these
truths? Verse 4 says that you will be a
grateful or humble Christian. Verse 4 teaches it produces a
humble Christian. You go to verse 6 and it says it
produces a grateful Christian. When you understand these things
and you truly have them in your heart and in your soul, you
become humble and you become grateful.
Which means that the doctrine of election and the doctrine of
predestination are not incentives to sin as often as
thrown at them as if now you become the frozen chosen.
If you've heard that you can, you can do whatever you want
because right you've been secured in Christ.
It gives you license to do anything.
This verse is saying the opposite.
You've been chosen so that you can be holy and blameless.
You've been chosen so that you can it's the exact opposite.
And it also means that this out in the culture that this young
restless and reform movement that comes from Packer and D
Lloyd Jones and all these guys. And we, we've kind of begin as a
culture to emphasize the sovereignty of God and the
election and the predestination of God.
And it comes with inner culture pride, as if knowledge of
election and predestination gives you some kind of elite
status or an ability to look down on people who haven't
learned about it or have a different view on election and
predestination. And Paul says it ought either to
create humility. Because when you understand
this, what you understand is that your fruit in this world
without God has brought wrath on you.
It's brought damnation, it has brought hell, and it's brought a
lot of ugliness in the world. That was your contribution to
your salvation. That's your contribution to this
world. And we say God in his grace,
being rich in mercy, has snatched you from the fire.
So where is your boasting? Where is your ground for
boasting? Where is your pride?
When you understand these things, it makes you low and it
makes you humble and it makes you grateful.
Stewart Town and sings, I won't boast in anything, no gifts nor
power nor wisdom, but I will boast in Jesus Christ, his death
and resurrection. And then he asked that powerful
rhetorical question, what shall I gain from his reward?
What are we going to gain from his reward?
Colossians 312 is a kind of a sister passage.
And Paul addresses the elect there.
And again he calls them beloved and he calls them elect.
They're synonyms. And he moves on.
He says I charge the elect, put on compassionate hearts, put on
kindness, put on humility, put on meekness, put on patience.
These are the kind of things that are to come out from
somebody who truly understands this doctrine of God.
It's election is all of grace. It brings humility and
thankfulness. So before the foundation of the
world in love in order that you should be holy and blameless.
This verse is used by Paul to show that the authorship of your
new identity in Christ is the work of God and God alone.
And so, having set forth this election, he now sets forth the
doctrine of predestination to highlight His purposes for your
salvation. He showed you election
highlights the sovereignty. Predestination highlights the
purpose. Read verse 5 with me.
It says he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus
Christ according to the purpose of his will.
So again, I hope you see the doctrine of election drives you
toward humility. It drives you toward warmth.
That's what I want you to get from this.
It drives you toward warmth. It drives you toward compassion,
warmness, and in the. Same way the doctrine of
predestination is meant to be warm and compassionate.
It's supposed to be evoked feelings of warmth and affection
and safety and compassion. It's why Spurgeon, when he's
talking about election, he says it sets the soul on fire with
enthusiastic delight in God. And even when you begin to read
the old dusty confessions, the Westminster and the Scots, and
you read all of these and the Anglican confessions, all of a
sudden when they begin to talk about predestination and
election, it gets warm, they perk up and all of a sudden
these documents come alive. Listen to the the Anglican
Confession. The godly consideration of
predestination in our election in Christ is full of sweet,
pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons.
So you, you err, and I err. If we begin to think about God's
predestination and election as some kind of cold and
calculating exercise where it's a lonely and deciding thing,
that's not how Scripture presents it.
In Scripture it appears in the warmest and most beautiful of
all the passages in the Bible. Romans 8.
Ephesians 1. And I think that part of this is
due to the the doctrines that the Bible attaches to the
doctrine of predestination. Predestination is never alone.
It's always accompanied by the metaphor of adoption.
They go together, they're inseparable.
Adoption of you as a son, the confession by which you call
God, your ABBA and your father is with inseparably
predestination. And this is another great
treasure. And if you're going to
understand this treasure, we have to understand what this
word means. What does, what is
predestination? What does it mean to predestine?
It's a word that's used six times in the New Testament.
I'll say the word in the original because you'll
recognize it in English in a moment.
The word is pro oridzo. The word oridzo means to
determine or to appoint literally to mark out by
boundaries. Oridzo is where we get our word
horizon. It's that great boundary in
front of us, so we can see it all the time.
And so if you add the word pro or beforehand to the word
orizzo, all of a sudden that means to determine or to a point
beforehand or to mark out the boundaries beforehand.
And you say before what the text has already answered that in
verse 4, before the foundation of the world, this was set in
place. And you look at the etymology of
the word, you look at the usage in these 6 verses of the Bible.
It lends to the meaning. To decide upon beforehand or to
predetermine God predetermined his church.
And I want you to see again, getting into the grammar for
just a minute that chose as the premier word.
We've already said chose as the word that brings this whole
section ties the whole section together.
Predestination is a verb that's attached to that word.
When you're looking at how they go together, it could be one of
two ways. It could be means meaning God
chose us by predestining us. Or it could be a causal
participle, meaning because God predestined us, he chose us, and
you can make that choice yourself.
God chose us by predestining us. Or because God predestined us,
he chose us. And while we're in the grammar
again, we'll say that you are not just predestined.
That word can't stand alone. You're always predestined unto
something else. And what Paul is saying is
you're predestined unto adoption, the warmest, the most
beautiful of every metaphor for your salvation in the Bible.
And so God not only chose us to be in Christ, but at the same
time decided to bring us into relationship with himself to to
overcome what happened in the Garden of Eden when we became
enemies of God and we were separated from him.
And he said the only metaphor that explains this relationship
well, that the perfect metaphor in this world to explain that
relationship is the metaphor of adoption.
This is what God the Father has done for us.
And once you see, adoption and predestination are inseparable,
inseparable elements of God's grace, inseparable expressions
of his eternal purpose for you. You were predestined for
adoption. Romans says it, Ephesians says
it, Paul says in Romans 828. You all know that passage.
God. God works all things together
for good for those who love Him. For those who are called
according to his purpose, for those he foreknew.
He also predestined the words that were immediately before
that was Romans 815, where he says you have received the
spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry ABBA father, he is
our father. That is his purpose for you in
Christ adoption. Again, the warmest metaphor of
all those metaphors for your salvation and I want to stop for
a moment and highlight adoption and say what is what is that
metaphor communicating? Why adoption?
Why is it so warm? Adoption, above all in this
metaphor, is about an identity change, and I think that's why
Paul uses it right here. He's saying you have a new
identity in Christ 35 times, and the premier metaphor for that is
adoption. The greatest identity that you
have is now being with the church in Christ.
He's using this doctrine because of it's tied to intimacy and
relationship. You're not just some kid
anymore. You're not like one of the kids
that was running around in England when there's just 10s of
thousands of them all out in the streets.
You have become adopted and you are now his child, his son.
There's something that changes in the relationship.
There's no intimacy between he and you.
It's about inheritance, a certain future, he says, more
than adoption. You've become an heir where
everything that he has, you now have.
He's prepared things for you. He's giving you things again.
They're not spiritual blessings because they're somehow part of
our internal invisible person. They're spiritual blessings
because these are all the blessings that have come by the
Holy Spirit. And when I think of adoption, I
think of my own adoptions. When we were bringing Thomas and
Logan and Timothy into our home, we knew that they were coming.
I think of John 15 where Jesus says I go to prepare a place for
you because he's adopted us. And so when we were bringing
these boys into our home, we went and we, we got them beds
and we got them comforters and we got them dressers and we put
posters up and one kid like zombies.
So we put zombie posters up on the walls because we knew we,
they like it. And we got toys and everything
ready for them. And they were becoming part of
our identity. They were coming up, they got an
inheritance. They got things because we love
them. And the same is true for Tay and
Alec. When they were coming into our
home, we prepared beds for them. We got them their own Lego boxes
full of Legos with their name on it.
This is them. This is for them because I loved
them. Adoption is about security.
And I want to highlight this. Sonship is irrevocable.
Period. It's not about an emotional
decision, it's a legal change of status.
If you are adopted, you cannot be unadopted.
And he's talking about Roman adoption in this passage.
And Roman adoption is exactly the same as American adoption.
This is why the purpose exists. If you adopt, you cannot
unadopt. If you adopt, you cannot give
your children back. It's a legal change now and
forever. Period.
It's permanent. God gives His Spirit and does
not take it away. God declares you to be a son and
it's fixed for eternity. He makes you an heir and it says
that he brings that good work to completion at the day of Jesus
Christ. It will begun an eternity past.
It's working through eternity future.
There is nothing that you can do to change your status once it's
been given in Christ. And finally, the metaphor is
about family, meaning you are never alone ever again.
You will never be lonely. You will never be alone.
I mean, you may come to terms where where you're lonely, but
you have a church, you have people, you eternally have
people and you alternately have a sense of belonging.
And there's, there's loneliness, a sense of loneliness that comes
from being in this world. And you see people try to, to
secure their identity in other groups outside of the church.
You were made for your identity to be found in this church, this
local body being an expression. And the world tries to, to, to
satisfy that craving of loneliness by going to onicons
and by going to comic cons and by going to furry conventions
and by going to whatever it is that's out there where they can
find community. And it it can fulfill in part.
Because it's a picture in a metaphor of the church, but it
will never satisfy. Like the church satisfies.
This is where you were made to belong.
This is your people, this is your home.
This is where you belong. It's illustrated in the Old
Testament where Elijah was feeling lonely and he says, I
feel like I'm the only Christian.
I feel like I'm the only one that's doing anything good for
God. And it's at that moment that
actually God comes to him and speaks to him, and he uses his
purposes of election and predestination and sovereignty
to comfort him. He says you'll never be alone
because I have kept for myself 7000 men who have not bowed the
knee to bail. And what he's saying is you're
not alone. You will never be alone.
And he's able to make that promise to you because it's up
to him. And the same is true for you.
You have people in this city and you will never be alone because
God has a church in this city. And you will, you are part of
this body, and you will never be alone because you have this
community. This is where you belong.
This is your home. And so unless you get lost in
the the heady Trinitarian theology of Ephesians 1, the
epistle brings all of this affection and all of this warmth
from eternity past in love. God predestined you for a
family, for relationship, for sonship.
Ji Packer understood these words here and his his words are
profound. He says this quote.
Everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New
Testament new and better than the old, everything that's
distinctively Christian is summed up in the knowledge of
the fatherhood of Godfather is the Christian name for God in
quote. He goes on.
If you want to know how well someone understands biblical
Christianity, find out how much they make of the thought of
being God's child and having God as their father.
Do you agree with them? So this was set in stone.
Paul says beforehand, before the foundation of the world, you
hear it in the language by his foreknowledge, you were
foreordained, you were fore loved, you were predestined in
the Greek word pro. These New Testament authors,
especially Paul, they throw it before all these words, showing
that the things that are happening in this world are not
by accident. These are things that that God
has written beforehand. He throws this word pro to show
that this is all part of His eternal plan.
It's pro genosco he knew before Romans 829.
It's pro orizzo. He set it on the boundaries
before Ephesians 15 and 111, pro tithami he planned in advance.
Ephesians 19 pro katartizzo, he prepared beforehand.
Romans 923 pro grafo, he wrote beforehand.
Galatians 3 one pro UN galizzo my he announced good news
beforehand. Galatians 38I think you see the
theme. And so one major question that
the subject brings up that Paul anticipates us asking is how
does he choose? Is it arbitrary?
Do you have to win a divine lottery in order to be loved by
God? Or is there something else going
on? And the answer brings us to the
end of verse 5. It says that this was all done
according to the purpose of His will.
And so how do you come to be in this state of being in Christ in
His church? How do you get this new
identity? It says the emphasis is it's His
will. He determined this.
Romans 916 the opposite. So it depends not on human will
or exertion, but on God who has mercy in verse 5.
It's according to the purpose of His will.
That same word elect that came in verse 4 comes up many times
in the Old Testament and you have in the Old Testament in
First Samuel 1740. This.
Exact word elect in the exact same grammatical form when it's
talking about David taking those smooth ancient stones out of the
out of the brook to use for his purposes of slaying Goliath.
And it says David took his staff in his hand and chose for
himself five smooth stones and put them in the shepherd's bag.
And so we can ask the same question of David.
How did David choose those stones?
Was it arbitrary? We say, no, He chose them
according to the purpose of his will.
He had a purpose to accomplish. He chose the few out of the many
to accomplish that purpose. And we say in the same way, God
chose for himself the few out of the many.
And it says nothing more than according to the purpose of his
will. Second Timothy 19 because of his
own purpose and because of his grace, Ephesians 15 according to
the purpose of his will. Romans 9 in order that God's
purpose of election might continue.
And even in that chapter, the 9th chapter of Romans, he goes
on to anticipate the response where people are saying it, then
it's not fair, Is God not good that he would choose a few?
And God answers back. He doesn't answer his question.
He says, Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?
Who are you to accuse God of not being good?
And he, he moves on. And then he immediately says,
The following words will the clay say to the one who moulded
it, Why have you made me this way?
Is it not up to the Potter to use for the clay of 1 vessel?
For he can do whatever he wants. 1 vessel for honourable use, one
for dishonourable use. Who are you to accuse God of not
being good? And so his election demonstrates
his sovereignty. His predestination demonstrates
his purposes. We see that God chose you, He
made you. And I want to point out his
purposes are good. He's a good, good father.
It's who he is. This is who you are.
God's word unambiguously teaches that God's divine election and
his subsequent predestination. It's not a puzzle to solve of
how does my will fit into God's will.
It's, it's a blessing and it's comfort and it's warmth and it's
grace and it's not a doctrine to argue.
It's a blessing and a truth to be remembered frequently and to
be cherished. That God for loved you so much
that he sent his only begotten Son into the world to seek and
to save you who are lost, and you were to be holy and
blameless forever. So you wake up to the reality
that salvation has come to you by God's grace, that you were
deserving of death and hell. And then God's God set his
electing love on you and made you alive in Christ Jesus and
that and locks Ephesians 1/6 to you.
Our final verse says to the praise of his glorious grace
which he has blessed us in the beloved church.
We're blessed in the response to the doctrine of election and
predestination is praise. Praise God from whom all
spiritual blessings flow. There used to be a song in the
the old version of the Baptist hymnal that's in front of you.
I wanted you to turn to it when I looked, they took it out.
So the old one that was for James Woodward, and not the new
one it was, had a hymn in it that was called My Lord.
I did not choose you. And the words went like this, my
Lord, I did not choose you, for that could never be.
My heart would still refuse you had you not chosen me.
You took the sin that stained me.
You cleansed me and made me new of old.
You have ordained me that I should live in you.
And the chorus came like this. Jesus, you've saved me and taken
all my sin, all my sins away. Jesus, you've called me before
the world began to glorify your name.
I was without hope and dead, but you chose to save my life.
Say that again. I was without hope and dead, but
you chose to save my life. So, Christian, you are rich, you
are blessed. You're going to see this week
and in the next two weeks all of the treasures that you have in
Jesus Christ, treasures that maybe you didn't even know, all
of these treasures coming, that you're adopted, you're a child
of God. More than that, you're an heir.
He's graciously given you all things to enjoy.
And I hope you see out of the many applications how much
you're loved. I hope you see just how much God
the Father loves you, how much Jesus Christ loves you so much
that He died for you and that the Spirit sealed you.
And the God the Father adopted you and is preparing a place
with you even now so that he can be with you forever.
So adoption is from the foreknowledge of God the Father
through the redemption of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by the
application of his Spirit to the praise of his glorious grace.
This is now your identity, and this church is where you belong.
Church, please pray with me, Lord, what immeasurable riches
that you've given us in your Son.
All things are from him and through him and to him.
And we pray now and sing with praises on our lips.
To you be the glory forever and ever.
Amen. Lord, thank you for the gift of
salvation. And we see this new identity
that you've given us and this mystery.
And it was a mystery and now it's been revealed through your
apostles. And we confess it's, it's too
lofty for us. We had no idea the treasures
that you've given us. And so now thank you for this
glimpse into them. God, give us comfort and knowing
that we belong to you from everlasting to everlasting and
help us to call you Father through the name of Jesus.
Thank you for your many blessings to us.
We pray all this in Jesus name, Amen.
Thanks for listening. To learn more about Heritage
Church or if you'd like to respond to this sermon, visit
our website at www.heritageshawnee.org.