A Sentence Begun in Eternity

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.