Ephesians chapter 1, let's begin reading at verse 1. We'll go down to verse number 6 and we'll stop there this morning. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, or the heavenlies, 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 to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. And to these words, all of God's people say. Amen. We turn to Ephesians 1 this morning where Paul identifies himself. And this is a letter, kids, a letter. How ancient, right? That's so 50s, right? Not the 1950s, but the 50s, the actual 50s, right? Even way before that, to write an actual physical letter with some kind of paper, with a real pen that has real ink. Think of like a fountain pen or think of like a bird's feather, you dip it into ink. So ancient, right? So old. A letter. This letter is a letter of Paul, notice, and he identified himself here as an apostle. As an apostle, verse 1. That's someone who sent by somebody else with a message, with a word, with some kind of a declaration that this person is sending his representative, his apostle, sort of like an ambassador in our time or a spokesperson. in our time. So our presidents have a chief spokesperson and they go out every single day and they speak to the press, to the media, they answer questions and so forth. So that's what, in a sense, that's what an apostle was. Someone who was sent out by a king or by an emperor, by a ruler, by a leader. Someone sent on their behalf to speak. Now in Paul's case, he's an apostle of Christ Jesus, of Messiah. of Jesus of Nazareth, meaning he sent in the place of Jesus. He sent in the place of Jesus to speak on behalf of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. And this is by the will of God, he says, notice, by the will of God. So if we remember back in the book of Acts, for example, when Saul of Tarsus, the rabbi, he was traveling to Damascus to bring charges against Christians, to put them to death, to try them, to put them in jail, to exile them, to punish them for stirring up the world by believing that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. Do you remember what happened to him on that road? He was on the road ready to go persecute Christians. What happened to him? He was blinded, why? Who appeared to him? Jesus appeared to him. And now if you recall our sermons and acts, whenever God appears in the Old Testament, there's always some kind of form of light. And so it's a way of showing that he's the Lord, that Jesus is the Lord. He's God, he's exalted. And so he blinds the apostle and then he goes and he's put in a house for three days and he receives his vision. But then the Lord appears in a vision to a man named Ananias. No doubt Ananias told Paul, Saul, what the Lord said in that vision to Ananias. Quote, He is a chosen instrument of mine. This is Jesus speaking. He, Paul, is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name. That's what an apostle does. to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. So here's Paul, an apostle of Christ, Messiah, Jesus, by the will, the plan, the purpose of God. And he writes then, as an apostle, he writes to those who are called saints in Ephesus. Now, I always like these little phrases in the New Testament. They're so fascinating to me. To the saints in Ephesus, notice that. We might just sort of jump over that really quick, but to the saints who are in Ephesus, they illustrate to us these sorts of little phrases, the reality that exists in our own lives on the ground, we might say, that we are to be, that we are in the world but we're not to be of the world, right? We are all citizens, we are all members, we all have an address or we live somewhere, we all stay somewhere that is in a particular town, city, county, state, country, right? So we all live in the world. this world but at the same time we are not to be of it and so we might be citizens of the city of Oceanside, county of San Diego, state of California, the United States of America for example for those of us here as citizens of this country but at the same time we're also we're also citizens of God's heavenly kingdom. And that heavenly kingdom manifests itself down here on earth, we might say, in and through the church. So while we are citizens of an eternal kingdom, an eternal city, we still live in cities. So to these saints, right, who are in Ephesus, in other words, the church, as some have described, the church is an outpost of heaven. On earth, the church is an outpost of heaven. Meaning God is making his kingdom known and heaven itself is known on earth in and through the church. And so these saints or these holy ones, they are living in Ephesus amongst people that are not saints, who are not described as holy ones. But notice what he also says about them. They are not just saints in Ephesus, but they're also faithful in Christ Jesus. What happened in Ephesus, in the book of Acts, when Christians were there, when Paul was there? What happened to the Christian church? Was everybody happy that they were there? Paul was preaching and people were taking their idols and they were getting rid of their idols, right? And they're burning their magician's books and so forth. And that caused a great stir and they dragged Christians into an amphitheater, even Paul himself. And he wanted to go there to defend himself, but they wouldn't let him. So they were faithful in Christ Jesus. Christians were being persecuted during a time of great upheaval in Ephesus, but yet they remained faithful. So, yes. God describes believers as saints, as holy ones, but you still get to live on earth. You still get to live through the difficulties and the grind, as we call it, of life. And so, While we are members and citizens of Oceanside or Carlsbad or wherever it is, we are called to live out, to live out what it means to be a saint, to be faithful in our particular time, in our particular world. And so as Christ chose an apostle to take the name of Christ, as he told Ananias in Acts 9 to the Gentiles, Paul blesses these saints and these faithful ones in Ephesus saying grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, as we open up here in chapter one, just notice, I stopped reading at verse six, but if you go all the way down to verse 14, you probably have like a heading there in your Bible, if your Bible has headings, or there's a new paragraph indentation at verse 15. That's because verses three to 14, they are like one lengthy sentence in the original Greek text. And this is a lengthy, Eulogy, literally a eulogy. These are words that are spoken in praise to God. So here's this lengthy eulogy or this blessing of the blessed God for his blessings to us. So Paul is blessing the blessed God for his blessings to us. And the blessings here, verses three to 14, there are a number of them. We're gonna just look at verses three to six this morning. But notice they follow a very wonderful pattern of the Holy Trinity, the Trinitarian pattern of Father, verses three through six, the Son, verses seven through 12, and the Holy Spirit, verses 13 through 14. But let's just focus in on verses three, four, five, and six. this morning. So, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And at the onset, one of the things that we learn as we read this opening eulogy, these words of praise, these good words, this blessing of God, one of the things that we learn here is that the Christian faith is to be categorized and characterized by gratitude. By gratitude. Gratitude should permeate our lives. Here's Paul, he identifies himself as an apostle by the will of God. He blesses and he greets and he welcomes, in writing at least, these saints and these faithful ones in Ephesus with God's grace and his peace. And then he opens up, not with as he normally does, with sort of a welcome and an introduction, like in Romans, you know, I want to come and see you and I've heard great things about you, say like in Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 1. But here he begins with praise and thanks and gratitude. The Christian life is a life of gratitude. The beginning, the middle, and the end of all that we do should be characterized by gratitude, by blessing and praising God, the blessed God, for all of his blessings to us. The beginning, the middle, and the end. And the end. What a nice little pattern. Every single day we wake up, give God thanks. Throughout the day, give God praise. Close the day, give God thanks. We do that with our kids. We pray with them, say at breakfast, we pray with them at dinner. Maybe nowadays we send them a text message in the middle of the day, praying for you, thinking about you. But we should be categorized and characterized by gratitude. Amen? Now look first of all at verse three, just the first little part there. Here's Paul's blessing to God. He's blessing God here. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And just like Genesis opens up without attempting to prove the existence of God, here is Paul running to these Ephesians just by beginning with praise to God. No need to prove God's existence. We just praise him as believers. In fact, I saw this week an interview with Richard Dawkins. You know that name, Richard Dawkins? at least like a decade or maybe longer, I can't remember. He was the international face of the so-called New Atheism, Richard Dawkins, the international face of New Atheism. Now he calls himself a cultural Christian, you know that? Here's the face of New Atheism who's written all these books, The God Delusion, for example, and there's a whole cadre of fellow atheists with him writing all these books, but now he calls himself a cultural Christian. He says it's better to live in a culturally Christian country than not, than not to live in a culturally Christian country. Now, he goes on to say in this interview, you know, I don't believe any of the things of the Christian faith, but I'm a cultural Christian. It's better to be in a Christian culture than not to be, even though he doesn't believe any of these things. Now, I have news for you. It's important to believe these things. Right? There would be no cultural Christianity. We don't want to be culturally, just merely culturally Christian. But there wouldn't even be cultural Christianity unless there was real Christianity. And all the blessings of what he perceives as freedom and so forth wouldn't exist outside of Christianity. the Christian faith. It's important for us, loved ones, not to be mere cultural Christians, but to actually believe and believing these things to live them out, right? To live them out in gratitude. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the God who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth has made himself known on this earth in his son, Jesus. Right, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus once was asked by his disciples, they said, show us God, show us the Father. And what did he say to that? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Jesus reveals God, because he is God in human flesh, but he reveals God. So here is a blessing to God, the God and Father, right? So God the Father is God. Yet Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Jesus, our reading from Matthew 27 this morning, he claimed to be the Son of God. So Jesus was saying that God the Father is eternally a father, which means that he eternally has had a son, and Jesus is that son. The Father's God. The Son is God. Yet they with the Holy Spirit are not three gods. They're the one God in mysterious Trinity. In fact, notice here, the Father is called God, the God and Father, right? And Jesus is called what here? What's his title here? What's the title of Jesus here in verse one, or verse three, excuse me? Lords. God, the Father is called God, Jesus is called Lords. Who's the Lord in the Old Testament? God. What's God's name in the Old Testament? Lord, right? Yahweh. The Lord is God. God is the Lord. Isn't that interesting? the God and Father of the Lord. It's a way of describing in Trinitarian ways, Paul does here, he's saying that the Father has a Son and they are both God. They are, and Jesus is that Lord of the Old Testament. In other words, we don't try to comprehend these things, we just apprehend them. God isn't a subject for our mathematical addition, you know, how can three equal one and one equal three? But God is a subject of our adoration, not of addition, but of, Adoration. Just notice a few things about this little description of blessing to God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, we bless God because he's worthy to be praised. We bless God because he's worthy to be praised. Note this well. God is not a magic genie that we rub and we get what we want when we want it, when we need it. God is not a superstitious rabbit's foot that we dangle from our dashboard or from our rear view mirror. He's not merely a heavenly friend that if you, as I was telling one of my kids this week, if you scratch someone's back, they come back and they scratch yours, right? That's just a way of saying quid pro quo. You scratch my back, one day I'm gonna scratch yours. God's not that. We don't bless God, we don't praise God, we don't butter him up with flowery language, we don't impress him so that we can get something from him. That's not what Paul is doing here. We don't pray to him, we don't praise him to get him in a good mood towards us, and then we hit him up for our requests. We bless God because he's worthy to be prayed. Secondly, we bless God because gratitude, again, is the essence of the Christian's life. Gratitude is the essence of the Christian or the Christian's life. We don't bless God out of mere custom and obligation. but because our hearts and our minds, our souls are struck with wonder and awe at his amazing grace to us. When I look at your heavens, David once prayed, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him? That's gratitude. When I look up and I see the vastness, what is man that you are mindful of him? As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him, for he knows our frame. He remembers that we are what? Dust. Yet he loves us. Yet he raises us up out of the dust. as the psalm says, to make us sit with princes, to sit with his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we bless God because he's worthy of it. We bless God because that's what gratitude is. It's the very essence of our life is to be grateful. Third, we bless God because he is the blessed God. We bless God because he is the blessed God. Paul once told Timothy, who was the pastor of the church in Ephesus, we learned that from the New Testament, he tells him that the gospel is the good news of the glory of the blessed God. That's 1 Timothy 1. The gospel, the good news, is of the glory of the blessed God. To say that God is the blessed God, means that God is pure perfection itself. Saint Anselm, a great medieval Christian, once prayed, we believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be thought. We believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be thought. God is the blessed God. What's the greatest thought you possibly can have of God? God is greater than that. What's the most infinite, the most immense, the most eternal, the most all-powerful, the most all-knowing, the most all-wise thing that you can possibly imagine God to be? God is greater than that. He's the blessed God. That's why Paul says it's from him and it's to him and it's through him that all things exist. And then he simply says, to him be glory forever. Amen. And so loved ones, blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God who's worthy to be praised, the God we stand before in sheer gratitude every single day, and the God who is blessedness itself. And so again, every single day, may the beginning of our day, may the middle of our day, may the end of our day begin and end and everything else in between be full of gratefulness and gratitude and wonder at who God is. And so that's Paul's blessing to God. Notice the blessings from him. Verse three to five. We bless this blessed God or Paul blesses him and we do too. We bless this blessed God because of the blessings that come from God. So God is the one who is perfection itself. He's the all-blessed one and we bless him because he in fact has blessed us. Notice how the praise, blessed be, lead to the statement of why, who has blessed us in Christ, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Do you see that? Blessed be, who has blessed us, with what? Every spiritual blessing. Blessed be who's blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Again, everything is about gratitude and praise and wonder and awe at who God is and for what God is and what he's made us to be. This whole eulogy again, verses three to 14, full of blessings, and just look at these here. Verses four and five. The main blessing in these couple of verses here that God has bestowed upon us, the blessed God has blessed us and so we are to bless him in return. The main blessing here is what? Verses four and five. More particularly than just salvation, what else? What specifically is he saying here? Election. Predestination. Uh-oh. Uh-oh, right? Election. He's chosen us. Predestination. This is the main blessing that he says here, that God the Father is to be blessed for, that he's elected and he's predestinated. Now, that's not just me saying it, so don't throw the tomatoes at me. It's Paul who's saying this and we believe that all scripture is inspired by God and so Paul by the power of the Holy Spirit is now speaking to us just as Jesus did, just as the entire of the Old Testament did. I had a professor once in seminary who said you can't even, there would be no Old Testament if there was no election. If there was no predestination there would be no Old Testament because God chose Father Abram. There would be no Old Testament without God's electing grace. And so Paul here is blessing the blessed God for the blessing of election and predestination, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. In love he predestined us. Now, right up front though, when you read those words and you read those verses, verses four and five, right up front, Don't miss the context in which Paul speaks of election and predestination. This is so important. Don't miss the force of what he's saying and why he's saying it and to whom he's saying it, the overall context of it. It's adoration of God, not speculation. He's not saying this for us to speculate, you know, am I elect? Is he elect? Are they elect? How do I know that I'm elect? No, it's a word of praise to God. Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with this spiritual blessing of election and predestination. Give God praise, in other words, that he saves. Right, that's the big idea here. It's a blessing to God, a praise to God that he chooses, that he saves. It's not meant to be speculation, but adoration. Notice a couple of things about this. First, the most obvious thing to recognize is that God chooses. God predestines. That's what Paul says. It's the most obvious thing. In other words, God is God and you're not. Right? Didn't Paul say somewhere, maybe you'll tell me where it's at, that God is like a master potter and we as human beings are just like pieces of clay and God has a right over the clay to mold it as he wants and to shape it and to fashion it into what he wants. And do we as the thing that's molded, the clay, do we have the right to say back to God, you know, why have you made me into an ashtray? We don't have ashtrays anymore, whatever. Forget it, bad illustration. I grew up in the 70s, what are you gonna do? Why have you made me into a flower pot? Why have you made me into a wine vat? Why have you made me into whatever it might be out of clay? Do we have the right to say to God, you know, why have you made me like this? Where does Paul say that? Romans 9, right? Where he talks about this very same thing. God's God. God chooses. God predestined. In other words, election and predestination emphasize the freedom of God. God is free. God is God. And he is free to do all wise, all powerful to do what he desires. God chose, secondly, God chosen predestined from eternity past. That's also what Paul says here. Now we say that, eternity passed, if we can even say it like that, right? This is like we're stretching human vocabulary and even imagination. Again, talking to the kids, I don't know, a week or so ago, you know, what is nothing? What does it mean that God created all things out of nothing? Like if we close our eyes and we thought of nothing, what do we see? Well, we see just like black, right? That's something. We can't even conceive of God making all things out of nothing, out of nonexistence. It makes no sense to us. And so here's Paul describing that God has chosen us before the foundation of the world. So before time and space and history and matter, before anything was, God has chosen. So we talk about eternity past, but it's really like a non sequitur. It doesn't even make sense, but that's the only way we can describe it. Even the prefix in predestination emphasizes this, that this is from eternity past. Notice that verse five tells us, the basis on which God chose and predestined was according to the purpose of his will. According to the purpose of his will. In other words, election and predestination emphasize God's good and God's perfect plan, His all-knowing, His all-wise plan. He's free to do this and He's good and wise in doing this. Third, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ chose us in whom? In Him, right? Who's the Him? Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ in the context. And so many miss this, and we might miss this. Apart from Christ, there's no election and predestination. Apart from Christ, there's no election and predestination. To speak of election and predestination as we, you know, at times we talk about it or we try to explain it to people, but to do it apart from Christ, apart from thinking of Christ and referencing Christ, it turns it into an abstract, ethereal thing. Right? Sort of like... I don't know, back in my day, at least, the California lottery. We used to watch the California lottery on television. It was a big deal. You get your little thing, and they'd have it on TV. The little balls are popping. Do they even do it anymore? I don't even know. But the balls are all in this big thing, and the air is shooting them up in these little tubes. And what number? 10, 25, 99, 73. Did we get it? No, we didn't get it. Try it again next time, I guess. But that's not predestination. That's not election. That's not what Paul is saying here. When we think about election apart from Christ, that's how we think of it. You know, it's like, everybody is a number in a big vat of numbers, these little ping pong balls, and they're all just kind of like, blowing in the wind, and they just happen to like, one falls out and the rest stay in. That's not what God does. Not even close. God didn't choose and predestine according to some arbitrary or some random, some meaningless will. Look at verse 5. In love he predestined us. Now that in love can go with the phrase before it, that he has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. Or it can go with, as the ESV and many other translations take it, in love he predestined us. Because Paul talks about foreknowledge elsewhere, which means to be foreloved. Say, in Romans 8, for example. So it's not arbitrary, it's not random. It's that God chose in love, right? Very intentionally, he's done this. In fact, as verse six goes on to say, in his grace, God the Father has blessed us in the beloveds. Notice that, in the beloved. Who's that? Who's the beloved? Christ, right, Jesus. Jesus, who is the eternal Son, as I mentioned just a bit ago, in human flesh, right, that's who, in whom the Father has blessed us. In his eternal Son, our Lord Jesus, the Messiah. God is love. We know this from scripture. God is love. And this means then that God who is love and who has blessed us in his beloved, this means that from all of eternity before the foundation of the world, our triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, has existed or exists eternally in love. In love. The Father loves his Son. The Son loves the Father. The Spirit loves them and is loved by them. God is love. And in this eternal and infinite and perfectly blessed love that God is, the Father chose to share, we might say in human terms, some of that love that he has perfectly of his uncreated son and the spirit, and the spirit has the father and son and vice versa. He's chosen to give some of that love, we might say, to created beings, to created things. His eternal love for his uncreated beloved, the son, that love is shared with created people. And it's in Him, the Beloved One, the Son, Jesus, that we come to know that God loves us and that we love Him in return. Again, we can't speak of predestination and election apart from Christ, apart from the Son, because He's the Beloved One. And God in Him has given, eternally speaking, a people to be loved, to share that love with, and who then in love are going to return it. He chose us in Christ, right? He chose us in Him. It's in that very same love, that love that He loves His Son with, and that the Son loves Him back with, and together with the Holy Spirit. It's in that love that He predestined us, verse five says, right? That should just melt our hearts, that God, who is love, decided to not just create us, but He loves us. How do we know that? By giving us His Son, by giving us His Son. Fourth, this leads us to what Paul says is the purpose of this blessing of election and predestination. Notice that these aren't, again, these aren't just topics that we should just talk about randomly, sort of ethereally, without any purpose to them, right? The purpose is that God would share his love with us, but also notice the word that in verse four, the word for in verse five. These signify a purpose. God chose and predestined that we should be holy and blameless before him, verse four, and for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. He chose to share His love for His Son with you, so that you in response would be holy as He is holy. He chose to share His love for His Son with you, so that you would be adopted as sons. And the fact that we were blessed in this way assumes that we weren't holy and blameless, but sinful and guilty. The fact that we are blessed in this way assumes that we weren't sons or daughters or children, but utter strangers. God chose us, he predestined us in love in the beloved son so that we would be loved, that we would become holy as he is, that we would share in him and his life, that we would be adopted as his children into his eternal family so that we would then respond in love and holiness and actually be saints and live like it. One more point, a fifth point here about this. Some of these things are important to point out, but when Paul speaks of election and predestination, he's addressing the church, notice. He's addressing the church. Again, to say it, he's not addressing here the world or in some abstract theological concept. These are not meant for speculation and abstract thought. These are meant for us to be comforted in Christ. Verse four, he chose us, notice that. In love, verse five, he predestined us. Don't miss that. They're just simple little pronouns, but don't miss them. He chose us. He predestined us. In other words, election and predestination are a matter of Christian comfort. And so to say it like this, are you a believer in Jesus Christ today? Do you believe in Jesus Christ today? then I say to you as Paul does, praise your God who chose you, who predestined to save you of all people to be comforted in this great news. If you believe in Jesus, be comforted and give praise to God that he chose you and he predestined you to share that love with you. That's why he's saying this. It's not for us to wonder and to speculate. Am I really elect? How can I know that I'm elect and so forth? No, he's just simply saying it to believers. Oh, by the way, you believe in Jesus? Oh, by the way. Before you were even born, before anything even existed, you know that God already had a plan for you? That he loved you already in his beloved Son from all of eternity? That's what he says. Be comforted, be full of joy, give the Lord praise. Now, if you don't believe in Jesus, yet, if you don't believe in Jesus yet. Again, this is not about you, you know, finding out some secret, some secret pathway to figuring out, you know, is your name on that, on that book of life in heaven. There's no, there's no labyrinth. Paul doesn't give us a labyrinth here. If you follow these steps, and you follow this particular path, and you just might get to the end of this labyrinth, and you might get to the end of this maze, and if you do all the hoops, and jump through all the hurdles, and you get through all these things, and you discern all these little details, then you can know that you've been chosen. Again, Paul's writing to Christians here. And he says, if you're a Christian, you've been chosen. You've been predestined. In other words, we come to know that status, this amazing blessing of being chosen by God and predestined by God. We come to it in philosophical terms, a posteriori. We come to find that after the fact. We don't first go on a journey to figure out a priori, am I elect, and then I'm gonna believe in Jesus. No, we trust in Christ. And after the fact, the apostle simply says, oh, by the way, be full of joy and comfort that God has chosen you and give him praise for it and bless him. So the gospel, the gospel to you today, if you don't trust in Jesus yet, is to believe in Jesus. Believe in him. He gave himself for you. And coming to Him and following after Him, you learn and you grow into this wonderful, wonderful, assuring truth, God has always loved me. Even when I hated Him, God loved me and He gave His Son for me. And so bless your God for his blessing that he freely chooses and predestines, that he did so perfectly and wisely from all of eternity past. Give him praise that he did so in his love for you and his beloved son. Praise him that he did so to bring you back to him to live in holiness as his children. And bless God that he did this to comfort you and to strengthen you in faith, amen? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, who has blessed us by choosing and predestining. Now he ends this, verse six, just briefly, he ends this first blessing of God the Father in electing and predestining us with another little ascription of praise. So verse three and verse six, kind of like a little bookends. Verse three, blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. And verse six, it's all to the praise of his glorious grace. We praise him, we praise him, right? He blesses him in verse three, he praises and blesses him in verse six. Election, predestination, adoption, holiness, these are all aspects of the glorious grace of our blessed God for us. And it's because of his grace, because he's elected, because he predestines, because he adopts, because he causes us to be holy, that we praise him and give him glory this morning. That this God loves, that this God chooses, that this God saves. One old hymn says it like this. Marvelous grace of our loving Lord. Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured. There where the blood of the lamb was spilt. I learned only the chorus growing up when I became a believer. I didn't know all the verses, but here's the chorus that I at least learned. Grace, grace, God's grace. You might know this. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin. Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace freely bestowed on all who believe, all who are longing to see His face. Will you at this moment His grace receive? Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all our sin. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us in the heavenly places in Christ with every single spiritual blessing already, amen? Let's pray. We thank you, Lord, we bless and praise you for your amazing grace, your amazing love, which we learn here is a love from all of eternity, a love that you are and that you as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share together eternally, infinitely, so mysteriously. But yet you, in your purpose, in your will, in your plan, you have shared love. And we pray, Lord, that your love for us as believers would assure us and would give us confidence, but also, Lord, that it would drive us to our knees and to give you glory, and also, Lord, that your love for us would cause us to be burdened and to desire to share this love in our actions, in our words, in our deeds, and all that we are with those who need to come to know it. Lord, there are many kinds of love and there are many experiences, many levels, different depths of love in this human life, but there's none like yours. And so we ask, Heavenly Father, that you would bring those who are outside of your love in Jesus Christ in. to know it, to know you, to be changed by it, to be comforted in it, Lord, to be full of wonder and awe of it and to praise you with us. And so we ask that you would build, Lord, our faith and, Lord, build the church not just here but across the world in your amazing love. And so we ask all these things in Jesus' wonderful name and all of God's people say, Amen. If you turn back on that inserted song this morning, there should be two sides to it. Oh, there it is. On the other side, you'll see there a hymn that has the title, Give Thanks to God the Father. It's a hymn based on these words from Ephesians chapter number one. If you want to stand with me, if you're able to stand, we'll sing all five of the verses. The hymn tune, I believe it's, The church is one foundation. There you go. That's what we normally sing it to, but it should be familiar to us. So let's stand. Let's sing all five verses.