"God's Eternal Purpose" Ephesians 3:11-13 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Ephesians chapter 3, I want to read verses eleven through thirteen for us.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

Paul declares this was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

This week, obviously, church has been canceled for in-person worship, and it has just been on my heart how thankful I have been for Emmanuel Bible Church.

I texted some friends this afternoon and let them know that uh we weren't going to be meeting um tomorrow.

Now uh we weren't gonna be meeting on Sunday, and um they responded differently.

Some of them made fun of me, which is acceptable.

Others uh responded with frowny faces and the thumbs down emoji uh wanting to worship.

You know, we've been worshiping Sunday after Sunday for nine months now uh here at Emmanuel, and we haven't haven't missed a Sunday.

Um and we're delighted for that.

And so it seems sad to have to uh miss a Sunday because of snow.

Uh how does snow win?

That's what I want to know.

How does snow win?

Uh but it does, and that just gives me a chance to just remark on how thankful I have been for the faithfulness of Emmanuel Bible Church.

Um, we know that on Sunday after Sunday we've been meeting there, not everybody has been here.

Uh our guess is about half of our congregation has yet to come back to in-person worship, which is understandable given varying uh health uh restraints and government mandates.

You know, people decide how they're gonna submit to government mandates differently, and we honor that and we respect that.

And so for different reasons, we've had about half of our congregation back.

But this is the kind of day now where I can talk to everybody without distinguishing those who are here and those who aren't here, because nobody is here.

Um I've been so thankful for Emmanuel Bible Church.

I've been thankful for the elders and the leadership and how they've kept the church open in a world where when this started, if you remember back in May when we uh started opening up, uh there was all kinds of uh naysayers, there was all kinds of those that thought this wasn't the wise thing to do.

And I'm thankful that the elders stood by their convictions of the importance of worship and we were able to do that.

And we have seen the fruit of that the last nine months, haven't we?

We have seen new people uh come, so many new people come.

There's a couple Sundays ago I asked people to raise their hands if they had joined us since May, and it was, you know, a third of the congregation raise their hands.

We've received uh refugees, would be a word from other churches that have yet to open, um, which is again fine and understandable.

We know every church, their elders work through this differently.

So there have been many refugees that have come here.

We've received people from churches in DC that haven't been allowed to open.

We've received people from uh even Catholic churches.

I've met some people from Catholic churches that they have their own parish hasn't opened, and so they have come here.

Um, we heard a baptism testimony uh recently about somebody who did that just because they saw the word Bible on the sign, and so they thought that was legit, and they came here.

Uh, we've seen people come to faith during this time.

I think of the baptism testimonies we had at our last baptism, how uh those people during COVID were desperate and lost and came and found the truth of God in um in this church.

And so we're so thankful the Lord has used us in that way.

And those, I know those are geared towards outsiders, right?

New people that have come and new people that have come to faith.

And if it was one of those, that would be enough, wouldn't it?

Um but it's not just those people.

We have seen blessing inside our own congregation.

I personally have seen marriages strengthened uh through uh the conflict that comes with quarantine life and the opportunities that come with the church being the one place you get to go.

And I've seen marriages strengthened, I've seen sins confronted and exposed.

I've seen our missionaries, yeah, I get reports from missionaries, I've seen the fruitfulness of their ministry.

Um we have uh children's ministry is back.

You know, again, another thing we didn't start initially, but uh because people were nervous about it, and now we've been doing children's ministry back for I think six months now, and it is just it's packed, you know.

They at some of the age groups they're they're turning kids away because we have so many kids that are coming, and that is such a joy.

And by the way, if that makes you feel a little bit guilty guilty that we're having to turn kids away, we could, in theory, have more classrooms open if we had more teachers.

And I'll let the Holy Spirit do its do his work on your heart uh in your living room right now.

Um, but if we had more teachers, we could receive more.

But our classrooms are all open and they are just they're just maxed out.

And uh we're thankful for that.

Um that you know, at the very before we opened our children's ministry, we did a survey um with the parents, and uh many of you, I'm sure, got that survey because we were nervous who would come back.

Like we didn't want to staff children's ministry and get ready and have you know two kids come up, and uh and now it is packed.

What a joy that is! Emmanuel Christian School, same thing.

You know, to my knowledge, when we opened, we were the only Christian school uh in in well, the only school in our whole area inside the Beltway that was open.

Uh I was coaching their soccer team this year, and we were undefeated because no other school had a team.

Um but but I'll take that.

You know, that's it's it should go on the wall in the gym, I think, should be noted.

Um it's not just that they're opened and that they're their guys are playing sports there.

It's more than that.

It's that it's their highest enrollment they've ever had, firstly.

But secondly, to see the joy on the kids' faces, which you can see in their eyes, because they're they are masked, but just to see the joy they have in coming to school.

I mean, who would have thought that?

Uh, that parents dropping their kids off at school, they would have such joy in being there with their friends.

As I was pulling into the parking lot just uh a couple days ago last week, I saw a class coming out for for recess, and the first kid who ran out the door went and hid behind the the wall there to scare his teacher, and you know, the police officer is on duty, he's parked right there watching.

He and I were kind of next to each other and watching this whole thing play out.

It was hilarious.

And the teacher walks out of the room, she's leading the rear of the class, and this kid jumps out from behind the bushes, and you know, she freaked out, and it was it was it was really fun to watch.

Uh, they're having such joy at school.

They've raised almost$2 million uh just in the last few months, their end-of-year giving for what they're doing there.

And speaking of giving, our own church, uh, our giving in this December is higher than any December that I've since since I've been at Emmanuel.

And we haven't done an offering uh since COVID.

We haven't passed the plates a single time.

And yet we had more money come in December, in this in December than than I've ever seen.

Umgregation has been so faithful.

We have new classes starting all the time.

Uh we start had a grandparents' class that was supposed to start today, but uh I guess it'll start next week.

We've had Fundamentals of Faith, our new believers classes, which are full.

We I just got an email this week from somebody who's rounding up friends who wants to do a new uh new believers class, start another one.

We've had weddings and funerals, you know, and you can't go other places for this.

Um we've done so many weddings uh in unusual circumstances.

You know, I did a wedding at a VFW at the beginning of COVID with just like you know, nine people.

This was the 10-person max, there was nine of us, and the guy with the key of the VFW counted as the tenth guy.

And and since then we've gotten a little bit more and more bold.

Uh I did a uh I was able to officiate a wedding last week that was just it was a zoo.

There were so many people there, and there's just such joy.

And many of them were not believers, and they just couldn't believe how good it was to be around people with that kind of celebration.

We've uh did a wedding in the prayer room not too long ago.

We've got other weddings like that coming out where people can't get married anywhere else.

They can come get married at the church, and and we just to get to celebrate their joy with them funerals.

You know, I just look at funerals in different places and they're you know 25-person maximum and sit six feet apart, and you know how sad that would be for the families.

And you know, we've been able to receive people in here and you know, hug them and minister to them and pray with them, and the Lord has used it in people's lives to encourage them.

And so all of that.

This has certainly been a time that none of us would have chosen at all.

And yet this is something that God chose for us.

And you really do have to believe that.

You really do have to believe that this was not our plan, but this was God's plan, and he's using all of it for our good and for his glory.

I mean, that is where your plane has to land.

When you're confronted with trials or difficulties in life, trials as trivial as a traffic ticket and as maximized as the death of a loved one or a global pandemic which brings the world to a halt.

You really do have to ask yourself the basic question: do I believe that God is at work in this?

And if you ask that question, you will come away with a confidence in the Lord.

This is exactly what's happening in Ephesians chapter 3, by the way.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

This is not just random here.

Ephesians 3, verses 11 through 13.

Ephesians 3:11–13

It's Paul saying that he is in fact thankful for the trials that he has been going through.

He says down in verse 13, don't lose heart at all of his suffering, which he is doing for the gospel's sake.

He recognizes that he's suffering, and he's suffering in a very real way.

He notes earlier that he's a prisoner for the gospel.

He's literally in custody, in prisoner, for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And he says, I don't want you to lose heart about that.

I don't want you to sweat it.

It's okay.

You know, if God is sovereign and God is good, then Paul says, I can go to jail for preaching him.

It's alright.

And that becomes a convicting sentence to us.

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but Ephesians 3, verses 1 through 13 is all an interruption.

Ephesians 3:1–13

You know, he starts at Ephesians 3, verse 1, for this reason I, Paul, and he's about to go into his prayer.

Ephesians 3:1

He interrupts himself.

The ESV gives you a little m-dash there and picks it up again down in verse 14.

But all of verse 2 through verse 13 is just a long interruption to his prayer.

He finally gets to his prayer in verse 14.

We'll get to that either next week in or a couple weeks.

But I just wanted to close out this little interruption he has with himself here in verses 2 down through 13.

He reminds the readers that he is a prisoner for the gospel, that he's in custody for the gospel, that God is at work, that God has given his Holy Spirit in verse 6, that we're a partaker of his promise through the gospel, that he's a preacher of the gospel in verses 7 and verse 8.

He's preaching it to the these unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ.

He wants to bring to light, verse 9, we looked at this last week, all the mysteries of God so that everybody can see it.

This is the manifold wisdom of God, he says in verse 10, the multifaceted wisdom of God.

That is the complexity of God's mind and of his wisdom is on full display for the world to see through the preaching of the gospel.

That's the point.

The gospel becomes the window then.

When you look through the window, you see the beautiful majesty of God on full display.

When you don't look at the window, when you look at the wall, you're unable to make sense of the beauty of God because you're not looking at it the right way.

When you turn your eyes to the gospel, suddenly everything comes in focus.

And so he wraps this up in verses 11 through 13 by saying that he understands that everything that's happening to him is happening according to the purposes of God.

It's so easy to lose confidence in God during trials.

It's so easy to even ask yourself the basic question when you get up on the Sunday morning, why do I go to church?

Why do I go to church when there's all these restrictions about it?

Why do I go?

And you can extrapolate that question to almost everything in life.

When there's trials and there's difficulties, why do you keep pushing forward?

Why do you keep pursuing the Lord when you're tempted to sin?

Why do you keep repenting of your sin?

Why do you, if you're in a difficult marriage, why do you stay married?

Why do you stay with your family sometimes when your heart tempts you to leave and to run away?

What builds your boots into the ground there?

Why do you stay through difficulty?

Why do you have the courage to pray to God through trials?

And he answers this in verse 13 by saying, you have confidence by living for God's glory.

Our circumstances drown out our confidence, don't they?

When there's difficulty in life, our confidence dissipates.

When all is well in life, you're super confident.

I know that.

Every one of you, when things are going well in life, it is easy to be confident.

You're the king of the world when things go well in life.

But when trials come in life is exactly where difficulty comes in life.

And so I think it's fitting to close off this little section of Ephesians by giving you a little brief outline here to go through the rest of our morning here.

How you can find your confidence again, how you can find your confidence.

And let me draw out three ways from this passage.

You can remember your confidence, you can find your confidence by remembering these three things.

And the first of these three things is God's eternal purpose.

You can find your confidence, your confidence to be holy, your confidence to stand before the Lord, your confidence to put off sin and put on righteousness, pursuing godliness, confidence to discipline your body for godliness, confidence to take your thoughts captive, confidence to pray with boldness.

You can find confidence to lead a godly life through difficulty and suffering.

That's the point here.

As I mentioned earlier, nobody would have chosen a global pandemic that stops things in the world.

So many people have died because of it.

Nobody would have chosen that.

And so you find confidence by remembering that somebody did.

That this is God's plan.

So Paul says in verse 11, this is according to the eternal purpose that is realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This little phrase here is according to the eternal purpose.

Paul is declaring that his suffering, his imprisonments, his time in jail is according to the purpose of God.

Now, this is according, it covers his imprisonment, but it also covers all the aspects of the gospel.

The Jews and Gentiles are together, they're fellow heirs.

Paul's not distinguishing between those two things.

He's saying, I'm in prison.

This is according to God's plan.

God's plan, big picture, is that Jews and Gentiles will have faith in Jesus Christ.

They'll be part of the same church, part of the same body.

That gospel goes to the world by gospel preaching, Paul says.

And so I'm going to be a minister of the gospel.

That's why I'm in jail.

So he's not dividing his own suffering from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that is so critical to remember.

If you're suffering for being godly, if the difficulty in your life is coming from holiness and righteousness, it ought not be divided in your mind from God's plan of salvation, from God's purpose in eternity past to send his Son Jesus Christ to be the atonement for sin.

This is the plan of God.

And I note here that it's God's eternal purpose.

Paul uses that word in verse 11, his eternal purpose.

And that's a phrase that should jar you when you think about it.

What does that mean, his eternal purpose?

Because let me just ask you a basic question.

Eternity, two directions, forward, all of us are eternal going forward, one direction.

But what about going backwards?

What in the universe is eternal going backwards?

What in the universe?

What person, being, plan, angel, anything?

Make a list in your mind of things that are eternal in reverse, with no beginning in time.

And I mean, that's a very short list, isn't it?

That list is God.

And that's it.

And if you have the attributes of God in there, great.

Put the attributes of God on that list.

If you have the Trinity in there, it would be better.

You have Father, Son, Holy Spirit, eternal in the past.

No beginning to that.

And that's the end of your list.

Nothing else is eternal.

It is only God.

And here Paul uses this phrase this is according to God's eternal purpose.

And so now here's another thing: there's God and God's eternal purpose.

And you have to be very careful how you think about this, because the purpose here is going to be the gospel of Jesus Christ, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross for sin.

And Paul here is saying that is something that God has planned, and he's using the word eternal here to mean before time.

God planned this before time.

Theologians say it this way: that the eternal purpose of God here is not essential to God.

It's not something that if God didn't have the cross, he would cease to be God.

Of course not.

God is God independent of his creation.

He doesn't need to send Jesus to the cross in order to still be God, in order to validate who he is or vindicate who he is or prove something to anybody.

Him sending Christ to the cross is a totally free act of God.

It's not intrinsic to who, it's not part of God's essential nature.

And nevertheless, Paul says it happens in eternity past.

Before God made the world, God planned this.

He planned to send Christ.

That's what he means as an eternal purpose.

So this is not a purpose.

Let's just talk basically here.

This is not a purpose that God came up with after he created Adam and Eve.

He didn't create Adam and Eve and then look at them and say, This is great.

Now what can I do with them?

Nor did he create them and let sin enter the world and then respond to it by coming up with the cross.

He didn't watch Adam and Eve fall into sin and then, you know, scramble angels and, you know, go try to intercept the devil.

Where did he go?

I can't believe he snuck out of here.

And, you know, let me respond with this.

Here's a promise, I'll send a savior that will undo all this and put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak.

That's not the way the Bible describes this.

God had a plan of salvation before he created anything.

It is eternal.

And I would say it this way: God's purpose here, what Paul calls his eternal purpose, is really God's first act of creation, God's first acts towards his creation.

It's before day one in Genesis.

It's before he separated the heavens and the earth and light and darkness, before he separated water from the dry lands, before he did any of those things, he crafted his purpose.

Scripture refers to this as a covenant.

In the book of Zechariah or in Luke, Jesus refers to it as a covenant.

Earlier in Ephesians 1, it's called an eternal purpose or a plan.

God has a plan for all things.

This is the eternal divine decree of God.

He has a plan for all things that is in his mind, and then he executes it in this world.

And that plan is not contingent.

That plan is not contingent.

I'm familiar with contingent plans even right now, as we were thinking, should we cancel church today and when do we wait to cancel church?

And the weather report says 90% chance of four to eight inches of snow.

What does 90% chance mean?

So there is a chance that there won't be four to eight inches of snow.

Is that what that means?

Or and so we talked to some weather people and they said, well, it means you know, nine out of ten times with these weather patterns, that's what will happen.

But there's always that one out of ten time.

And you know, when they say four to eight, that's code for you know, it's gonna be a lot of snow.

You know, so like, oh, I just we don't like making this decision before there's actually snow.

I mean, shouldn't we wait until like one flake and then pull the trigger?

I guess it's a contingent plan.

God has no contingent plans.

He never makes a plan based upon something else that might happen.

Everything that happens, everything that happens without exception in all of human creation is according to his eternal plan.

There are no rebel molecules, there are rebel people because of sin, but even their sin and hostility and opposition to God is according to God's eternal plan.

And this idea of an eternal plan, the the word eternal is what should jar you.

The fact that God has a plan, I mean, that's you have a plan.

You know, you have a plan about where you're going to go eat, or what you're gonna go do this afternoon, or what you're gonna do next week.

You have a plan.

Of course, God has a plan, but it's the word eternal that should capture your attention right there.

That Paul is saying God had this plan and this purpose from being Before he made anything.

It is eternal.

On my honeymoon DJ and I went to Argentina and Uruguay.

And as we went down there, we did not have a plan.

I had booked our place we're gonna stay for the first few nights, and then after that, we were we were there for three weeks.

Went backpacking apart across part of Argentina, up across the uh the mountains there into Chile.

I mean, we had it was it was it was it was awesome.

But there was not a plan.

I mean, there was the first few nights that was planned.

Going to uh going to Uruguay, we didn't have a plan for that.

We took a boat across and we're like, oh, we'll figure out where to stay.

How hard can it be?

There's hotels and you know, went back to Buenos Aires, and same thing.

Let's let's find a hotel to say plan.

Let's just see what happens, you know.

And that was fun.

And but then as we get older and we have kids, that kind of vacationing doesn't work anymore.

You know, now when we go on vacation, we stayed with some relatives recently.

We had every meal planned before we left.

We knew what we were going to have, we knew who was going to buy it, who was gonna make it, what we were gonna do those days.

We had everything planned.

And it feels excessive when you're planning it, you know, a week or two before the trip, but that's just life when you've got, you know, people that are relying on you.

You kind of gotta think things through a little bit.

Do you understand that God planned out everything?

Not the day before he made the world, not the day before he made you, but before there was time.

He was not under pressure to get things done.

Everything is waiting on him.

And he holds all things in his mind.

He can make them when he wants to, or he can withhold, he can speak or he can not speak, and there is nobody pressuring him at all.

And in that eternal time between the Father and the Son and the Spirit, they designed all things.

All things.

This is why the scripture says in the our Father, there is no variation or shadow due to change.

What can cloud his judgment?

What cannot go according to his good and glorious will?

Everything will happen according to his perfect will.

There's no shadow of turning in him.

Even notice that Paul uses the past tense here in verse 11, according to the eternal purpose, that he has realized.

That it's it's already been realized.

The fact that Jesus came to earth and was crucified and resurrected, that is proof positive, right there, that his eternal plan is on schedule.

Nothing has gone awry.

This is exactly how he drew it up.

Well, that should give you confidence when you're going through a trial or a difficulty.

And some people will go through a trial or a difficulty and get angry at God.

They'll say, if this is God's plan, then certainly I should be angry at him.

And, you know, I'll tell you this: you're at least in the right direction.

You know, if you're going through a difficulty or suffering or trial, I don't even like the word difficulty, it minimizes it too much.

If you're going through a serious trial in your life and you're angry at God, at least you're angry at the right person.

At least in that you're demonstrating that God is the one who is sovereign.

It's better to work through that response to God than it is to say, God probably doesn't have anything to do with this, because that is not a healthy spiritual answer.

And of course, in your anger, don't sin.

Work through your anger by submitting your heart and submitting your affections and your own desires to the will of the Lord, recognizing that you want things that you don't get.

That's why you get angry.

And so rather receive the plan of God with an open hands and open heart.

So, firstly, you can find your confidence by remembering God's eternal purpose.

Secondly, you can find your confidence by remembering Jesus' accomplished mission.

And it's in verse 11 there, uh, it said this was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This whole eternal purpose.

All of God's sovereign decree is realized in a person, Christ Jesus our Lord.

When you think of the vast nature of God's sovereign decree, his eternal purpose, his perfect plan, for him to say that it is now fulfilled or realized or actuated in Jesus Christ, one person.

Of course, Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, who takes on a human nature and comes to earth.

This lets you know the cross is not just a blip on the timeline.

The cross is the lever upon which the whole timeline moves.

All of creation is flowing from the cross or to the cross.

The Old Testament points forward, the New Testament points backwards towards the cross, everything gets its bearing in all of the created universe.

Everything finds its bearing, not on the North Star, but on the cross.

Everything is realized in Christ Jesus.

The plan of God from before the foundation of time will be realized through the Son of God.

If the Son is God's perfect image, which he is, then it is fitting that God receives the most glory out of realizing this plan through his son being on full display.

And of course, the Son is on full display in the cross, where you see the attributes of God as holy, as just, where wrath is poured out on Jesus.

You see God's hatred towards sin, you see his love and mercy through that he gives through faith.

All of that comes in a perfect focus in the cross.

You can't say, you know, God must be soft on sin, or God must not hate evil that much of his perfect plan and his eternal purpose included sin and suffering in the world.

What kind of good God could that be?

God mutes that criticism of himself by the cross.

You can't accuse God of taking sin lightly when his son was crucified for sin.

And so the eternal purpose and the eternal plan of God is realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And those that the name should pile up there.

Christ meaning Messiah, the Savior, the sent one, Jesus, his human name, Lord, his eternal title.

The plan of God from before the foundations of time was to save those who were written in the Lamb's Book of Life from the fore of the foundations of time, by sending Jesus Christ, who had died on the cross for those written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the foundation of time, bearing their sins in his own body, then rising from the grave, bringing the souls of all those who had trusted in the future Savior but had fallen asleep before his first coming.

He brings those souls with him, freeing them into glory.

He comes to earth, resurrects from the grave, spends time on earth teaching about his kingdom because he is Lord, and then ascends into heaven where he remains right now.

That's the full purpose and plan of God on full display.

That's the manifold wisdom of God on display.

The perfect life of Jesus on display, the perfect death of Jesus on display, the perfect resurrection of Jesus on full display, God's holiness, his justice, his righteousness, all realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The resurrection demonstrates that these aren't just mere words, and they just seem like mere words to say.

That's why this is such a difficult concept to preach, because I'll say something like Jesus realizes the divine plan of God, and just it can sound like just soft words, but they're not mere words.

I mean, that is the lever upon which all of the universe works.

It's an infinite truth that an infinite God died for us, for sinners.

And it's not something that just happens.

That was the plan.

This was what God came up with.

He gave his deity, his humanity, his life, his breath, his holiness put inside of Christ.

He takes on a human nature, his deity robed in human flesh.

He leads the sinless life.

He breathes real breath, walks a real life on this earth, displaying the perfect holiness of God, and he dies bearing punishment for our sin.

That's the plan.

It didn't just happen.

When you remember that Jesus' mission is accomplished through his death and resurrection, that should bring everything else into focus.

If you're going through suffering, if you're going through trials, and you have to first remember this is part of God's plan.

Secondly, that God's plan comes into focus on the cross.

It doesn't come into focus in the mirror.

You're not going to be able to make sense of why you're going through what you're going through by looking at what you're going through more carefully.

Usually that's not where the answer lies.

The answer doesn't lie in studying yourself.

The answer generally lies in studying Christ on the cross and his death and resurrection.

And the more you look at him, the more your circumstances make sense.

You understand God has a plan.

That plan is on display in Christ.

My circumstances, my suffering, and my trial is connected to that plan.

I don't know how, but I know that it is.

And yes, that plan can involve unjust suffering.

Yes, that plan can involve an innocent person suffering.

Of course it can, because the plan is in focus on Jesus Christ, who was truly innocent and suffered for us.

So find your confidence to go through trials and difficulties, to remain holy and fight sin by remembering God's eternal purpose, by remembering that his plan is revealed, realized in Christ Jesus, and thirdly, by remembering faith's.

I'm going to say accessible boldness here.

He says in verse 12, in whom, speaking of Jesus Christ our Lord, we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

We have boldness to go before God.

And access, it says.

We have boldness.

And that's the kind of statement in the Bible that it creates it by saying it.

You're reading this and you feel like, you know, timid the sheep right now.

You feel like I don't have boldness to pray before God.

I don't have boldness to lead a godly Christian life.

I don't have boldness to take a stand for righteousness.

I don't have boldness to share the gospel with my neighbors.

I don't have that kind of boldness.

And then you read verse 12, and verse 12 tells you, hey, you have that kind of boldness.

And so by reading it and believing it, it's creating it.

That's why I like the phrase, faith's accessible boldness.

You have to read it and you have to believe it.

And how can you believe it apart from faith?

And isn't this the way all of God's promises are accessed?

All of God's promises are accessed by faith.

So it should make no surprise that you can have boldness in the face of trials here by faith.

It says, through our faith in him, for the end of verse 12, you have boldness to approach God.

You have access to his throne room, not just any kind of access, but access with confidence.

This is your glory.

This is your glory.

It's through our faith in him.

Brothers and sisters, do you have that kind of boldness?

And the answer is yes, you do.

You live out that boldness when you go before God in prayer.

And you go before God in prayer when you are living in faith.

You could reverse engineer this thing, start at the end of the verse, and recognize I am starting here with faith.

What's the manifestation of faith?

It's praying to an unseen God who hears everything I say.

Do I believe that he will hear everything I say?

If the answer is yes, then I will pray with boldness.

I will pray with boldness.

It's I'm not cut off.

Every person who has come to faith in Jesus Christ can come before the throne of Jesus with boldness.

There's no appointment needed.

No appointment needed.

I was at the post office recently and to mail a box, and I got to the front of the line and I thought the lady could tape the box for me, but she couldn't.

She would sell me a roll of tape for five bucks to tape the box for me.

Fortunately, I have tape in my truck.

And so I asked her, can I go outside and uh and tape it up in my car?

And she's like, Yeah.

And when you come back in, she said, the line, by the way, at this point, COVID, everybody's six feet apart, the line is out the door.

She says, when you come back in, just walk right up to the front.

You don't have to wait in line, just bring the box back.

You already stood in line one time, just come see me.

Like, great.

So I walked outside and taped the box up, and I'm going back in.

And now the line at the Annandale post office really is out the door, down out towards the mailboxes there.

And so I'm just walking right by everyone, and people are saying, you know, hey, the line's back here.

And I just, I have boldness.

Boldness.

I even had to go the wrong way through those one-way doors right there at that post office because the line, you know, the guy was taking up the whole thing there.

And so sensor triff, and I go and I walk all the way up to the front.

You know, no appointment needed.

I just walked right up.

And it's the kind of thing you have to do with confidence, because if you look timid, the people will browbeat you away.

You have to have confidence.

This is the image Paul wants you to have in your mind of approaching the throne of God.

You have boldness to walk right into the throne room.

Angels will step aside when you pray if you pray with faith.

And a lack of this boldness, a lack of this confidence, it comes from being timid, it comes from having little faith.

Calvin writes, quote, to separate faith from confidence would be to attempt to strip heat and light out of the sun.

It should convict you.

Praying, a Christian who says, I pray, but I don't have boldness, I don't have confidence, it's like saying the sun has just lost its heat today.

There might be a cloud in the way, but the sun has not lost its heat.

The fog might obscure your view of the sun, but the sun is still the sun.

No little fog is going to drown it out or dampen its fire.

So it should be with a Christian's boldness.

So it should be with a Christian's boldness.

He says, verse 13, he wraps this all up.

In light of that, in light of your boldness, in light of the plan of God on display in Jesus Christ, in light of God's eternal plan from all before the foundation of time, he says in verse 13, listen, I ask you to not lose heart over what I'm suffering for you.

Don't lose heart over this, he says.

Don't lose heart.

He's preaching to himself, I'm sure, too.

He's telling himself, heart, don't get lost in this.

Don't be sad about suffering.

Don't be sad about being in prison.

Don't be sad about it.

Don't lose and the phrase lose heart, it's a great English idiom.

It means just that.

Don't grow timid.

Don't grow weak.

Don't grow wilting on God because of something small like being beaten almost to death, put in an unjust trial.

So he appeals to Caesar, gets transported by 600 soldiers to Caesarea Maritime, stuffed in a boat, put across the sea.

Of course, there's a shipwreck on the way, now ends up in Rome where he's in chain.

So when I say he's in prison here for the gospel, there's a little bit of a context to this.

And he says, Oh, what's that?

What's that?

A shipwreck?

Ain't no thing.

Six hundred soldiers fighting off a mob?

This is God's plan.

Roman jailers chained to me?

That's okay.

I'm getting the gospel in the sea.

He tells the Philippians, where she wrote at the same time as Ephesians, hey, the Roman jailers chained to me, that's great news because now I know the gospel is getting into Caesar's house.

That's great.

That's his attitude.

You know, non-believers will bark at anything.

I said that a few weeks ago talking about the riots.

It shouldn't surprise us when non-believers lose their minds about things.

I was on an airplane a while ago with a guy that just was just totally agitated.

He was not, you could tell he hadn't been around people in a while.

He didn't, people in the back of the plane are supposed to stay seated until the rows in front of them got up was a very clear instruction from the flight attendants.

Some people didn't, and this guy was gonna fight the whole plane over it.

It was so weird.

Like you're gonna get more germs on you by fighting 20 people than you would be if you just let them walk by.

But today, I saw a guy in my neighborhood losing his mind.

He was throwing things out of his car, piles of things out of his car, everywhere.

Just it was it looked like a garage sale in his front yard.

And yelling and all kinds of words that are not church appropriate.

And I go over to him and I'm like, are you okay?

And he says, I can't find my wallet.

Okay?

Let's calm down a touch.

He got physically sick.

Got physically sick because he's so nervous about his wallet.

He did not have money in it, by the way.

I asked.

Everything else is replaceable, man.

Calm down.

But can you calm down if you don't believe God has a plan?

Can you calm down if you don't see that plan realized in Christ Jesus?

Can you calm down if you don't think there's a God who hears you and you have access to?

I mean, not really.

Telling him to calm down was probably the worst approach of evangelism I could have come up with right there.

I thought it wasn't, it wasn't time to be like, you know why you're angry because you have sin.

That wasn't the right time either.

There's probably a mediating response that it shouldn't surprise us, though, when people are angry or timid or anxious or sinful over trials or difficulties in their life.

That's not the Christian way.

The Christian way is verse 13.

I ask you.

I just love how Paul says this before he even gets to his prayer.

I ask you.

Don't lose heart of what I'm going for.

It's for your glory.

This is Romans 8 all over again.

Everything that happens happens for our good and God's glory.

How can it be for your good?

Well, if God's glory is your greatest good, then it is for your good and glory are interchangeable there.

Everything that happens in this world happens for the glory of God to be on display through Jesus Christ, realized through a world where you are committed to preaching the gospel.

But if you're not connected to the gospel, then you'll be in desperation.

Listen, everything you're experiencing, God has planned from before the foundations of time.

You might say, hey, I put a lot of effort into planning this party, I put a lot of effort into planning this event, I planned it for weeks.

Okay, well, God planned this for an eternity.

So receive that through faith.

Lord, we're thankful that long before creation, you predestined us in love.

And we're thankful that that love has been realized in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sin.

And we're thankful that even after that, your Holy Spirit keeps us.

He keeps us even right now in the faith, giving us boldness.

The world changes its fashion, the world changes what it desires, it changes its ethics, it changes its values, its commodities all the time.

But those who trust you will never be moved.

We will never be shaken to the indwelling of your Holy Spirit.

I pray for anyone watching this who has never placed their faith in you.

I pray that they would place their faith in you now.

They would believe in your death and resurrection.

They would believe that it alone can make sense of what they're going through in this life.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.