In or Out | Pastor Brandon Beals | Venture Church

Hi, and welcome to Venture Church Online. My name is

Kelsey and I'm our online campus pastor. We're so glad

that you're joining us. Drop a comment below of where

you're streaming from. We would love to interact with you.

We hope that you enjoy today's service.

I want to welcome you to Venture Church this morning.

If you don't know who I am, I'm Brandon. I

am the lead pastor of the church. If you're a

new to Venture I'd love the opportunity to say hi

to you, meet you. I'll be hanging out in the

lobby after the service. Come up, introduce yourself, fist bump me.

Love the opportunity to meet you after the service. I

want to tell you the story about a unique person

in our history. Her name is Heady Green. She was

one of the richest people in the world at the

turn of the century. She died in nineteen sixteen, and

I want you to picture this in terms of twenty

twenty five dollars. In nineteen sixteen, she passed away, leaving

an estate worth one hundred million dollars. That's a lot

of money today. Imagine how much money it was one

hundred years ago. But what's interesting about Hetty Green is

she is known as the Witch of Wall Street. She's

also known as America's greatest miser. So even though she

has this exceptional wealth, it is said of her that

she would only eat cold oatmeal because she refused to

pay the costs to heat it up. What we're told

about Hetty Green is that her son lost his leg

to amputation because she refused to pay for the medical care.

She spent much too long trying to find a free clinic,

and once she found a free clinic, his leg was

incurable at that point. I'm gonna show you a picture.

It's a pair of her underwear. I didn't think you're

gonna see that, did you? Hand made this pair of

underwear at sixteen years old, and she wore the same

pair of underwear until she died at eighty one years old.

Some of you think your husband is cheap. He ain't

that cheap. A lot of it's hard to decipher fact

from fiction about Hetty Green. But she died from a

stroke after arguing with her maid over a simple pay raise.

Now we hear this, and we hear somebody with this

much wealth choosing to live this destitute. It doesn't make

any sense to us. But there are many followers of

Jesus today. You have limitless wealth and blessing at your disposal,

but you choose to live like you are destitute. It

was to this kind of Christian that Paul wrote his

letter to Ephesians. We are going to be spending the

next couple months diving into Ephesians. I hope you have

your brains engaged. My advice would be every week we're

going to challenge you to read and study and memorize

ahead of time. You don't have to do that, but

I will say it will help. This book be locked

in your heart, and that's what you want. You want

it to be woven into the fabric of your heart.

But Ephesians, chapter one, verse one, if you don't have

your Bible, the words will be behind me on the

screen I'm reading for the New American Standard. It says,

Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.

I think that is important. Paul is a minister not

because he chose to be, but because God chose him

to be. Like he is doing this at God's will.

And then it says to the saints who are at

Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace and peace

to you from our God and Father and our Lord

Jesus Christ. I want to ask everyone to buy your heads,

close your eyes. I want you to repeat this prayer

after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus, speak to my heart,

change my life in Jesus' name. Amen. As we begin

this journey through what is no as a Pauline epistle,

Many of the New Testament are Pauline epistles. In fact,

over half of the New Testament is And some of

you have never heard that phrase before. It's just more

proof that I have a doctorate right there. What does

the word Pauline mean. It means Paul wrote it. Wow.

The word epistle means letter. So these were letters that

Paul wrote to churches. Now what we know about Paul

is Paul. We read about his conversion in Acts nine.

He was also known as Saul. Paul was born as

a Jew in a Roman city, so he was a

Jew who had Roman citizenship. We know that Paul grew

up pretty wealthy. His parents could afford the best schools,

so he was trained under the best Roman teachers. But

he also was able to sit under the best best

Jewish rabbis, so incredible education. Paul grows up and he

is a devout Jew and he does not like Christians

spreading deceit. So he thought, as a way to honor God,

that he would go around having Christians who are spreading

this heresy arrested. In fact, we're told the story that

Paul stood back as Stephen gets executed for his faith,

and what we're told is that Paul watched approvingly. But

acts Chapter nine tells us the story that Paul is

on his way to the city of Damascus once again

to persecute and have people like you and I arrested.

But on his way to Damascus, Jesus crosses his path.

I always tell you that the one thing that we

all have in common is that at just the right moment,

Jesus crossed our path, and when he did, he changed everything. Well,

Jesus crosses Paul's path, and it turns Paul's life upside down.

He goes from being public enemy number one for Christians

to becoming a follower of Jesus and then eventually the

church's greatest spokesman for Jesus in his day, when Paul

started his ministry, he traveled through the region of Asia Minor,

which is modern day Turkey, Greece, Italy, and he traveled

through this region and he would share the Gospel. When

people would become followers of Jesus, he would then establish churches.

As best we know, Paul established churches in fourteen of

the most influential cities in that entire world region. We

know about seven of them from the Book of Revelation

when Jesus specifically addresses the seven Churches of Revelation, but

we know that there's an additional seven. Now, if you

ever do a Turkey trip with us, we will visit

many of the excavations where these fourteen churches were located.

But after Paul started a church, he would leave and

go on to the next city and start another one,

and then he would leave and he would manage all

of these churches through letters epistles. He would write a

letter addressing issues that they were facing at the church,

usually specifically issues at that church. Sometimes these letters were

so specific, Paul would say things like, Hey, when I

was there last time, I left the jacket, Well, grab

my jacket for me. So they were very specific. But

these letters were so profound and full of knowledge and

meaning that they were copied and sent to the other churches.

They would copy and trade them and send them. And

that's how we have so many copy ancient copies today

of the Pauline Epistles, because these were copied and shared

around pretty much the world. Ephesians is Paul's letter to

the Church in Ephesus. Back then, Ephesus was a major

port city. Today the port is dried up, and this

is all it is today. It's basically a small Turkish

village with a huge archaeological site. Again, you go on

the Turkey trip, you'll get the privilege of walking through

the ruins of the city of Ephesus. This is part

of it. Ephesis was the third largest city in the

entire Roman Empire. Ephesus had the second leading church in

the world, the leading church being in Jerusalem, but the

second most influential was in the city of Ephesus. To

give you an idea, John the Beloved, John the Disciple,

John who wrote John First, Second, and third. John spent

the end of his life in the city of Ephesus.

Jesus' mother Mary spent the end of her life in

the city of Ephesus. So Ephesus is this center for

activity in the church, but in addition to that, it

is an incredibly affluent, worldly pagan city, so much so

that Ephesus was world renowned for its temple to Artemis.

This temple took two hundred and twenty years to build.

It was so large and such a sight to behold.

It was seen as one of the greatest wonders of

the world. It was six times the size of the

Pantheon in Athens. If you've ever seen the sites of

that before, so six times the size of the Pantheon

was huge. Visitors would come from all over the world

and they would buy little figures like this as souvenirs,

kind of crazy. They'd be solid silver and all they

are is little Artemis statues. But the gospel was moving

so greatly in Ephesus under the ministry of Paul that

people would make these, but they would find Jesus and

refuse to buy these statues. So all of the shopkeepers

and all the city officials were so upset at the

early church in Ephesus that they starved a riot because

their businesses were going under because so many people were

getting saved. That was Ephesus. Ephesis was this point in

culture where God was moving and it was clear, but

the pressure of the surrounding pagan culture was so extreme

at all times. That sound familiar, kind of sounds like seattle,

But that's the way Ephesis was. Another interesting picture. I'll

show you picture of my wife. Here she is. This

is pre broken dye. So if you'll notice behind her

this huge theater. They've excavated that entire theater. It was

the largest theater in the world at the time. It

seated fifty thousand people. This is Ephesus in this large, wealthy,

culturely world renowned pagan city. Paul starts a church. He

visits the church twice. The second time he spends three

years there, and Ephesians is a letter that Paul wrote

to that church. The interesting thing about Ephesians is Ephesians

is deep. It's full of incredible theology. It brings up

words and discussions and doctrines that are so profound. Entire

denominations have split based upon words found in Ephesians, like

if you ever hear the terminology you have our mini

in theology versus you have reformed theology. It comes from Ephesians.

One it's the different interpretations of Ephesians one. In our

region you have three large churches kind of in this

Mill Creek Bathel area. You have US, Gold Creek, Canyon Hills.

US in Gold Creek have our theology. Canyon Hills has

reformed theology. Many of you thought, well, I thought the

biggest difference between US and Canyon Hills was our stance

on women in leadership. No, it's literally reformed versus Arminian theology,

and it comes from Ephesians one. Ephesians is interesting because

Paul first the first three chapters are all about doctrine,

some of the most heady, deep teaching on doctrine we

have in the entire Bible. And then his next three

chapters are all about our response. So in the beginning

he addresses our position in Christ, he addresses what we

are in Christ, and he addresses what Christ did for us.

But then Paul balances this doctrine of grace with what

is our expectation and duty. So we inherit the wealth

of the Gospel by faith, but we invest the wealth

of the Gospel by works. Interesting, Paul is about as

balanced of a follower of Jesus as you can find

He is all about grace, and he's all about our

responsibility because of the grace we've received. Now, I got

saved in the eighties, and the eighties is the peak

of legalism in the church. Like there's many of you.

You have friends that don't go to church because of

church hurt from the eighties legalism. So then the pendulum

swung the other way where instead of this is how

you should live to grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. It

doesn't matter how you live. You have grace, grace, grace,

and that isn't extreme. The other side and where we

find the gospel today is we have this gospel of grace,

but at the same time, we understand that we have

a responsibility once we accept this gospel of grace to

live like Jesus. So Paul is bringing that balance in

this letter. Now. The reality is we can't cover everything,

and we're not going to. I'm gonna do several podcasts

with several different key scholars in our church. So if

you ever follow my pastor's Unfiltered podcast, and you haven't before,

this would be a good time to start. I did

a deep dive on Ephesians one, and I unwrapped many

of these concepts that we don't have the time to

unwrap today, but I will every week hit the high

point and the main theme. Are we good? Okay? Ephesians

one to one to the saints who are in Ephesis?

Who are the saints? Now? The Catholic Church is convinced

you that that is an honorary title given to a

person that is perceived to be sinless. That is not

what Paul is referring to. A saint is not a

person who is sinless. A saint is a person who

is a sinner saved by grace. A saint is someone

who is set apart by Jesus. In other words, I

have good news for you. You're a saint. Go home

tonight when you're driving home, inform your wife that you

are Saint Brandon, not Brandon, but your name. You know

what I'm saying. The NIV uses the words God's holy people,

but this word saint refers to you and I nine

times in the Book of Ephesus. He also uses the

word disciple in its place, and he uses that word

seven times. He uses people of the way three times.

Statements mean the exact same. They mean that you have

heard the message of the Gospel. You believe you are

a follower of Jesus, Saints, disciples, followers, this book is

not just written to the church in Ephesus. It's written

to me and you. It's written to all of us.

But if you aren't a follower, if you don't know

what you believe, this is going to be helpful because

if you're seeking, you should research faith, and after hearing

all of the teaching on Ephesians, you will understand the

expectations in the reward of your faith in Jesus. So remember,

Paul wasn't just writing a letter to the church in Ephesus.

He was writing a letter to the church as a whole,

and that includes you and I. And he begins it

by saying, to God's holy people in Ephesus, the faithful

in Christ Jesus. That word in is arguably the most

important word in the entire New Testament. Bold statement. There

has been hundreds of books written on that word in.

If you read any commentaries on Ephesians, they spend pages

unwrapping that word in in Christ Jesus. By the way,

the Christ part that is his title in Jesus, but

his title is Christ. So in other words, his title

would be like king, his title would be like Lord.

But Paul uses in Christ Messiah Jesus twenty seven times

in the Book of Ephesians Church, all of life can

be summed up in the simple word, in the greatest question,

the greatest personal decision you will ever make. Your entire

future hinges on that word, are you in or are

you out? If you are in, you are a member

of the body of Christ, and you are united with

every Christian around the world by the Holy Spirit. Everything

that God has believers is in Christ Jesus pp. How

do I know if I'm in or out? If that's

this important thing, I don't know if I'm in. Maybe

I'm out and I don't know it. Well, Paul tells

us phusions one, verse thirteen. We're gonna jump around. He

tells us, this is how you know you're in, and says,

and you were also included in Christ. There it is again,

when you heard the message of truth, the Gospel of

your salvation. So in other words, you heard the message.

You heard the gospel when you believed. So you heard

the message of the gospel and you believed it. Once

that happens the Bible says you were marked in him

with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. So you heard

the gospel, you believed, and when that happened, he seals you.

Did you know you have a seal upon you. Some

of you don't have tattoos. You have a tattoo, you

can't see. Jesus gave it to you. He marked you,

he sealed you. You're his. Then it goes on and

it says, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance and

tell our redemption. So, in other words, how do you

know if you're in or out? You heard the message,

you believe the message, You're marked with the seal, and

it guarantees you an inheritance. Why does it guarantee an inheritance?

Because when you become a follower of Jesus, you become

adopted into God's family. You have all of the same

adoption rights as a biological son or daughter. You are

his son, you are his daughter, and as a result,

you have full inheritance rights in His kingdom. That is

what is such a shame is the number of followers

of Jesus who are a son or daughter of God

with all of the privileges and benefits of being in

His kingdom. But you're like Hetty Green, you live like

your destitute and poor. That's what Paul is addressing. Challenge

is to understand the wealth and blessing we have available

to us because we're in Christ Jesus, Paul says. In

Ephesians four, he drops this line. He said, I urge

you to live a life worthy of the calling you've received. Quickly,

I want to share with you three benefits of being

in Christ from Ephesians Ie. We are going to hit

on some heavy theology. Catch the high points. Listen to

the podcast. That'll help. Number one, you have redemption, like

if you are in Christ, you are redeemed in Him.

Verse seven. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness

of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace

that he lavished on us. Don't you love that word?

God lavished his grace on us. He chased after you,

he sought you, He lavished his grace. He says, this

is my message, this is my gospel of forgiveness. What

are you going to do with it? When you and

I step back and say, Jesus, I repent of my sins,

will you forgive me. He lavishes that grace on us.

He says, not only will I forgive your sin, but

I won't remember it anymore. I'll throw your sins as

far as the east is from the west. You are redeemed.

The coolest thing about God's redemption is he seeks out everybody.

He seeks out everyone. Did you know that the gospel

is totally inclusive? Isn't that surprising to say in a

world where it's totally divided right now? In our world,

the Gospel of Jesus is absolutely inclusive. It is for everyone.

Every single person he calls, every single person is invited.

Every single person is welcome to be his son.

Or daughter.

If you repent and belief. But the problem is, while

the gospel invitation is totally inclusive, God's family is exclusive.

You have to accept and believe his gospel, his word,

and then you're in. Are you in or are you out?

When you're in, you're adopted into sonship daughtership. You're guaranteed

an inheritance because of the redemption and grace of Jesus.

That's number one. What happens when you're in. Number two,

second thing that happens when you are in Christ, is

that you're chosen. The Gospel uses the word elect. I

mean all these really complicated words that you don't quite understand.

Here's some words that sum this up. And these words

have deep theological thoughts for us. Elect chosen, predestination, for knowledge.

Those are words that have been debated and separated entire

movements on the meanings of those words. So let's unwrap

each one. Election chosen. When did God choose you? You,

all of us? When did He chose us Ephesians one four,

For he chose us in him. There's that word again,

before the creation of the world, to be holy and

blameless in his sight? When did God start thinking about you?

Before he created everything? God started thinking about you. God

had a plan for you at the very beginning. You

were on his mind from the very beginning. Charles Spurgeon,

great preacher in history, made this statement about this fact.

He said, I'm glad God chose me back then, because

if he saw me now, he might change his mind.

And I was cheesy, but it's true. The amazing thing

is God loves us so much that he accepts us

the way we are. But he loves us way too

much to leave us the way we are election first,

Peter One, to God's elect You have been chosen according

to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying

work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Christ Jesus

sprinkled in his blood. WHOA, that's a lot. What does

that mean? You know whether or not you are chosen

and elect by your response to the Gospel. Those who

hear and believe you are the elect. You are chosen.

Those who choose to reject and say no, you're lost.

The word elect election, in both Greek and Hebrew mean

the same thing. It means to choose. It means chosen. Now,

the two words that most people get hung up on

are predestined and foreknowledge. Now, I don't want to mess

with you, but let me try. A lot of people

are messed up with that word predestined. They think that

predestined means you and I have no free will, that

God chooses who will be saved and who won't be saved.

In other words, God chooses who he will allow into

heaven and who he will banish to hell. That is

the extreme understanding of the word predestination. But the problem

is you cannot separate fore knowledge from predestination. You have

to understand fore knowledge first to understand predestination. I would

argue the previous stance that I mentioned is a lack

of understanding of what foreknowledge is. God's foreknowledge determines his predestination.

I had a graph made for you to help. Here's

your life. Every one of you, you're all on here.

You get born. You were born, every single one of us.

Multiple times in our life, maybe hundreds of times, were

brought to a point of decision. We say yes to Jesus,

we say no to Jesus. So we make a decision.

Then we have another one. Are we gonna say yes

to Jesus? Are we gonna say no to Jesus? Then

we have another one. Are we gonna say yes to Jesus?

Are we gonna say no to Jesus? And then eventually

our life ends and we die. But we know that

death is not the end. There's an afterlife, there is

an eternity. So think we all relate to that. What

we know about God is God is omniscient. What is

omniscient means God knows everything. He knows everything past, present,

and future. In other words, try to wrap your brain

around this one God can't learn anything, can't learn anything.

He already knows it all. Nothing surprises him. So in

other words, when you got to the point, am I

gonna say yes to Jesus? Am I gonna say no

to Jesus? God is in up there in heaven. I

really wonder what brain's gonna do. Come on, Brandon, and

then I say no and he's like that knucklehead. Or

I say yes and he's like, oh, thank myself. He

said yes. God does not decide for me. I have

free will. I choose yes to Jesus, know to Jesus.

But God's fore knowledge, he already knows what I'm going

to choose when I get to these key pivotal points

of decision. That is his foreknowledge, is his knowledge of

the past. His predestination knowledge is his knowledge of the future.

Because God knows what I am going to choose in

the past. God knows what my future will hold as

a result. But I have free will to make those choices.

Did I just mess you up? Any of you seen

Infinity War movie Infinity War? None of Come on, let's

be real. I don't believe you're lying. How many of

you have seen Marvel Infinity war rajor Brat be buried. Okay, good,

I'm like, what in the world. It's like, I'm not

admitting I saw that Godless movie. You need to have

seen it for the point of my illustration. So there's

a part of that movie where they're fighting Thanos on

Thanos's planet and they've lost and Doctor Strange starts shaking

and he basically travels at one time through all the

million different multiverses. Nobody can explain it, just go with it.

Then after he's done shaking back and forth, he looks

at Tony Starr and he does this, come on, somebody

help me. Whizz he do there it is? Come on?

He goes like this one And we end up finding

out later on that he traveled through a million different

multiverses and he saw one possible outcome where they won one. Now,

as a movie fan, we accept that, But why do

we have trouble accepting this? That God knows everything, that

he lets you choose what you're going to do. But

because he knows everything, he already knows what you're going

to choose. He doesn't decide for you you choose, but

he knows in the end what you choose. And as

a result of how you choose, God chooses you and

elects you, and you are predestined with the future. That

is great that we'll talk more about next week. Finally,

third thing in Christ, are you guys with me still? Okay?

We are adopted children with an inheritance. Now this is

so cool. Verse five it says in love, he predestined

us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance

with his pleasure. And will jump down to verse fourteen.

He says this, He says, who is a deposit guaranteeing

our inheritance. You see, when you become a follower of Jesus,

you are adopted into his family, and you are adopted

as a secondary as a not quite child of his.

You are adopted with the full blessings of being his

actual biological child. You are given those rights in your

fi like there are things that my kids can do

at my house than none of you are allowed to

do because it'd be rude. But my kids can be

rude at my house. It's things like my kids are

allowed to come into my house and not ask the

question every single person asks nowadays when they enter someone's house,

are you guys a shoes on or shoes off. Family,

My kids can walk around with their shoes, they can

walk around barefoot. They can do whatever they want because

they're my kids. You better ask, though. My kids can

help themselves to anything in our house, any of the food,

and they do. When I go to my in laws

die and I've been married for thirty three years, we

dated for another three years, so I've been going to

my in law's house for thirty six years. And I

still look at my very sweet mother in law and

I say, Patty, can I have a drink of water?

I still ask? Now, she says, stop asking. Just take

You're adopted now, Brandon, But I want you to think

of it that way, like you have all of the

rights and privileges of a biological son or daughter when

you are in Christ. Yet, Paul's biggest concern for us

as followers of Jesus is we live like we're destitute.

We don't live like we are followers of Jesus. We

don't live like we are His sons and daughters. We

live like heady Green wearing the same underwear for sixty years.

When God is like you could have a fresh pear

every day if you would just help yourself to the

free underwear. That is what Paul is warning, helping us

as believers with in effusions. I want you to buy

your heads, close your eyes. There are some who would

be honest and say, peb, I am not in Christ.

I've never accepted him as my savior. Today's your day

to hear the message and to believe and repent. And

then the most amazing thing happens. You leave this place

in Christ with all the blessings and benefits of being

in Christ. You have redemption. You're chosen, your elect. You

were a son and daughter. God knew before the creation

of the world that you would be at this moment,

this point where you would have an option of saying

yes to Jesus or no to Jesus. He knew you'd

be here. But ultimately the choice is yours. If you're

here and you're ready to say I want to give

my life to Jesus. When I say three, I want

you to raise your hand. I also know that there

are some of you. You've prayed prayers, you've gone to church,

maybe you're watching online and this is you, but you

are far from Him. You have prayed prayers, but you

don't live like you're a son or daughter, but you

want to say today is the day when I want

to live like I love Jesus. When I say three,

raise your hand, here I go, one, two, three, raise

your hand up. Now, hands popping up everywhere. The ushers

are sprinting around. They're gonna give everyone whose hand is

raised a card, and in just a moment, we're gonna

pray together. And after we do, I'm gonna encourage you

to scan the QR code on this card and you

are gonna get information on what you do next with

this decision. So keep your hand raised until you get

one of these cards. And I want to invite everybody

to stand up on your feet. Everybody stand up. I'm

going to close my time by having us pray a

prayer together. And all this prayer is. This is a

prayer that says, Jesus, I believe Jesus, will you forgive me?

This is a prayer that if you pray and you mean,

you leave knowing you are in Christ Jesus. So everybody

by your heads, close your eyes, repeat after me. Everyone

say dear Jesus, I stand before you today and I

admit I've messed up. I've made mistakes, but today I

ask you to forgive me, and I invite you to

come into my life and to change me. I choose

from this day forward to serve you with my life.

Thank you for forgiving me and for saving me. In

Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, congratulations, you are in Christ. Come on right, yeah, amazing, amazing.

On our church app, there's a tap that says what's next.

I encourage all of you to check that out today

or this week. Come prepared next week as we continue

in this series, and.

I'm going to send you off with this charge.

Celebrate being in Christ as much as you celebrate the

Mariner's victory.

Today. We love you. We'll see you next Sunday.

Fine, thank you again for joining us. If you enjoy

today's service, go ahead and subscribe to our channel so

you can see future messages. If you'd like to learn

more about Venture Church, you can click the link that's

in our bio. We hope to see you again.