Sisters, last week we began our study in Ephesians. We went through verses 1 through 3, and today we're going to be going through verses 4 through 6. I'm going to read all six of those verses. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us. in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, for He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace in which He has freely given us in the one He loves. Father, we thank you for such grace that you give according to your pleasure and will. And it's all to the praise of your glorious grace. And may we, those who have been predestined and know it through faith in your precious Son, may we live to the praise of your glorious grace in your beloved, now and into eternity, evermore, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, friends, we began our study in Ephesians with Paul, making it clear that he's an apostle of Jesus Christ. And here's what the term apostle means. It really means it's in him. You see it in him. It means one who is sent out, a sent out one. He was sent out by God and by the will of God. And that's, you know, what it is. In the ministry and life of Paul, it's just the beginning. He was sent by God to the saints. That means the hagios, the holy ones, the ones who have been, as the word means, set apart by God, set apart by God from eternity. to be disciples of Jesus. And he goes on to say how he's being sent, and what he's being sent, he's being sent to the Hagios, the holy ones, the saints in Ephesus. Those holy ones who are what? They are faithful in Christ Jesus. Paul then leaves the Ephesians with a wonderful, I'm not saying he goes away, I'm just saying, he leaves them thinking with and having in their hearts and minds a wonderful blessing meant for the Ephesians and it's also meant for all the saints who would follow this body of believers. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. All of this prepares the way for the Ephesians to learn, to learn of God's work in their lives. And we read in verse 3 that praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Yes, friends. Every spiritual blessing that can ever be beneficial for the sanctification of the saints, you know what it is? It is a reality that belongs to you as a believer today. as the born-again people of God. In fact, we must remember that we are all, that is, all believers, we are all a certain reality in Jesus. We are one in Christ. And in fact, I would say, we'll see this certainly when we get past the first three chapters, which is going to be quite a while from now, but in fact, this is the core message in Ephesians. God blessed us, God chose us, God loved us. And all that God did, He did for us all. And God calls us to live with one another as one in Him. Friends, you know why He would do that? Because we are a body. Because we are the body of Jesus. And as a body we are to reveal in our lives one reality above everything else that through Jesus we love one another. And as Ephesians 4 verse 12 speaks of the body preparing works of service, It is to be done so that the body of Christ will be built up. This, friends, is not something to be done so that we achieve some kind of notoriety, of being involved in good works. That's not the reality of this at all. This is to be done, verse 12 continues, so that the body of Christ will be built up until we reach, and all of us do, reach the unity of faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the full or whole measure of the fullness of Christ. That's our goal, to attain the full measure of Christ. Friends, we are to manifest Christ. We are to be, in a sense, I say this in a sense, the incarnation of Christ. in a world that has really, by and large, rejected Him. In this world, we really need to make it our calling to show forth Jesus Christ, knowing that this dying world This dying world needs to see Jesus. And the only way they will see Him, the only way He will be seen is in and through us. We are to live this life, we read, until, as it says, we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God the Son and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. This is the plan, friends. This is the plan and this is the goal. Don't forget that this goal for the people of God takes place through our use of the Word of God, which began before time even existed. Just notice in verse 4 of chapter 1, He chose, and that's the same word for elected, He chose or elected us before time even existed. He says that we were chosen or elected before the creation of the world. How about trying that on sometime? About what that means. There was no world. There was no time as we understand time. What then was there? You got to wonder, what was it? It was God. It was God. But right now, in chapter 1, we have Paul as well. We've been given Paul. And Paul has been introduced to this incredible reality that the full measure of salvation has been accomplished before even an instant or a moment of time existed in a world that has been created as part of that reality. This is what Paul is opening to God's people in chapter 1. There is first, in verse 4, election. There is in the second place, in verse 7, redemption. And this, friends, is what we might humbly call his master plan. Because there is also in verses 12 through 14, inheritance. So we have his plan, election, redemption, inheritance. Today, I want us to look, basically for today, at election, the first of those three. And the several realities that really make up election. First of all, election is very difficult for most people to ever accommodate themselves to, let alone trust and believe that this is truth. We're teaching a doctrine, which I'd say, you know, completely honest about it, it's sort of counterintuitive. I don't think it's a teaching which is easily understood or embraced. I've never seen it in people, nor in myself, as something that was easily embraced. Once it's embraced, it's a glorious truth that we love and are thankful for. Along the way, it's difficult. I know that when I speak with people and we talk about this, I hear complaints. They complain, it removes free will from us. But what makes you think your will is as free as you think it is anyway? They claim that it's unfair. They're going to decide what's fairness now for the whole world. So let us see at this point in our study what really makes up election. First of all, I want us to look at what such a choosing by God is about. The reality that God alone chooses people for salvation. It's not you or any person who chooses. It's God. God is the one who chooses His people. It is a sovereign choice that God makes. It's a sovereign choice and it's done entirely according to God's will, not ours, and not ever according to the will of any man. As we read in John chapter 15 verse 16, you did not choose me. But I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name." Paul is preparing what will be the core and the heartbeat of the Christian faith. This is what he's working on for that young Christian church. The centrality of the newly developing Christian faith has, it seems, three elements that are central to the Apostle Paul. The first I've already mentioned, it's the election of God's people before the creation of the world. The second is is when Paul announces to the church their redemption and what it's about. We see that in verses 6 through 11, and we will get to that next time. The third is inheritance in verses 12 through 14. We have election, redemption, inheritance. And so, as I mentioned, this morning we're going to be looking more fully at election. which has seven aspects, at least it's a good, perfect number for it, that help us understand what election is all about. The first is the method of election. God shows as the sovereign God. That was how he made that choice as the sovereign God. This was his sovereign determination and choice. Verse 4 puts it this way, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, we did not, indeed could not, have willed this We could have willed till the end of the age and it wouldn't have saved us by going by our own will. It was accomplished by God before the creation of the world. And verse 5 adds that this was done according to the good pleasure of His will. The good pleasure. Verse 9, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself. And verse 11, according to the plan, the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will. He doesn't humble Himself to get the purpose of our will so that He can say, OK, go for it. No, it's the purpose of His will. And so while election is a sovereign work of God, notice from John 1.11 that Jesus came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. No, it didn't end there. Because we read that, "...yet to all who did receive him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God." This is where, actually, man comes into the situation. Those who have been elected by God are those who believe in Him. And this is where man comes in. He exercises saving faith in Christ. And that too, you know, it's not like, oh well, I was chosen by God for the Foundation Bureau. Do it on that basis. No. I exercise faith, which is a gift of God. These believers are not born of natural descent, nor of human decision, or of a husband's will, but they're born of God. Even our faith, the faith, friends, that we exercise is completely the gift of God. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 puts it this way, For it is by grace you have been saved by faith. It's not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of works. Why? So that no one, no one can boast. No one can boast of their salvation, friends. It is God who chooses those who will be saved for all eternity. In 2 Timothy 1, 9-11 we read that it is the power of God that has saved us and called us to a holy life. not because of anything that we have done, but because of His own purpose and His own grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to life through the Gospel to which we respond by faith. As Romans 10, 9, we read that, let's put it this way, speaking of us, if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, you know what? We shall be saved. Now reading this verse, you may think, election isn't the way to salvation. But you see, that would be a disastrous mistake that you could make. We can only savingly believe in Jesus because he has chosen us. Both of these truths are in effect and we must never try to eliminate either one from the other, from the way of salvation. Think of it in terms of our prayer life. Just think about this for a minute. I can say I have never heard in a prayer meeting a call for people to do whatever it will take for them to be saved. I've never heard that. Like, God, help. So Steve or Sally, help them to do what they have to do so that they can do the thing that will save them. I've never ever heard that and I've had times of prayer meetings with people who completely repudiate what I'm teaching you this morning about God's choosing of us and yet they never make it to what would be at least consistent saying, you've got to make the choice and your salvation depends on the choice you make. No, they don't say that. They pray for them. for themselves to be saved by God. We pray this way because in terms of that kind of non-biblical way of praying about it, We want to be involved in this. We want to take some place. I'm saved because I said the right thing. I prayed the right prayer. You hear it all the time. Have you prayed the prayer? Pray the prayer, then you go to heaven forever and you're saved eternally. We pray for God's saving work on the people we love, and we ask for prayer that he would save them, God. Because I think no matter what our view of election is, we all know that God is absolutely sovereign in salvation. In some way, everyone just gets this. Think about it this way. When you come to faith, have you ever seen someone thank God for giving me the ability to say the right thing so that I'm now saved? I haven't heard anything with that either. Of course not. What we all do is thank God for saving us from our sins and saving us from death. We all know on some level that we can't save ourselves. We couldn't do it even if we were the best person in the whole world. but fight against a system that is beyond our control and depends on God alone. The simple reality is that we must never reject either the sovereignty of God and salvation or our responsibility before God to trust Him, to believe in Him. These are two sides of that coin. The two dimensions, both of them are true and we must respect and believe both of them. If you accept the sovereignty of God but refuse to believe in Jesus, you will not be saved. If you believe in Jesus but reject that he is sovereign and it is he who has elected you to salvation, You're fighting against, at that point, really the saving work of God and putting yourself, at the very best I could say, you're putting yourself in great danger to see God that way. Maybe the best way to understand this is to acknowledge that God has provided some mystery for us And we must be willing to accept such mystery. In other words, the sovereignty of God and our own responsibility, there's mystery in that. But that's what's involved because we are not God. It's also important to remember that God did not just elect individuals. God did another quite an impressive election. God elected a nation. God elected the nation of Israel. He did not choose Israel. He says, I didn't choose you because you're the biggest. I didn't choose you because you were the mightiest. I chose you because I loved you. The national election by God of Yisroel was an election of love. The election of apostles was an election of twelve men, one whom would prove to be a traitor and a twelfth took his place in Barnabas, but there's another one who took the place and that's as well took a place, but that's Paul who comes on out of time actually as an apostle. They were chosen by Jesus to be the leaders of the faith. It's an election such as Paul speaks of himself in Ephesians 1 where he says that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. So our focus first of all, is on the wonderful way that He has chosen us. He has chosen us in a very personal way, filled with love, and to know Him savingly so that we become His people and dwell in His presence forever. That's what He's done this for, so we'd know Him, we'd love Him, we'd dwell with Him forever. In 1 Peter, It begins with Peter saying of those in Cappadocia who have, according to 1 Peter 1 verse 2, been chosen in accordance to the full foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and the sprinkling of his blood. This idea is presented with power in another place. In John 6.44 we read that no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. The idea is that this God who draws his people to himself is exerting on all people being drawn to him an irresistible force and remains righteous through it all. As we see in Romans 9 verses 14 through 23. Verse 14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May God forbid, verse 15, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. And verse 16, So then it is not him that wills, nor him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. Verse 17, For the Scripture says unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared throughout all of the earth. And then verse 18, Therefore he has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he hardens whom he will harden. Verse 19, You'll say then to me, Why does he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will? And verse 20, But O man, who are you that answers back to God? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why did you make me like this? And then in verse 21, has not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonorable use. In verse 22, what if God, although willing to show His wrath, what if He's willing to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath that were prepared for destruction? And he did this, in verse 23, to make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had earlier prepared unto glory. You know, yet the very next chapter, in verses 9 through 10, teach that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. These are the two sides of salvation. God elects, He chooses His people and we must believe in Him. As it says in verse 11, Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame. In Romans 11 verse 2, when we read that God did not reject His people whom He foreknew, please understand what this means. It does not mean He does not reject the people that He came to know would make a saving profession of faith in Him. To know is not a reference to that. To know is a reference to love, to intimacy. When Eve was said to know Adam, it was not, oh, I'm getting to know you. I like your view on philosophy. No, it's nothing like that. When Eve was said to know Adam, it was intimacy that was being described. They were intimate and we see it. Eve was with child. So please don't believe that for knowledge means knowing who would eventually believe. That's not the intention of the use of that term. In the second place, we see that we are the object of God's election. We read in Ephesians 1, verse 2, that He chose us. And it goes on to add, He chose us in Him before the creation of the world. And friends, every single one of us who has been chosen will believe. There's really, as far as I'm convinced from my reading of Scripture, there's no question about it. Since He chose us to be saved, we will come to such belief, because if we do not believe in Him, we will never be saved, and Jesus guarantees the salvation of all who have been chosen. You could actually summarize all of this so simply. In this working out of salvation, We see here two things. We see God being God, and we see man being man. God elects, man believes. God chooses, man receives. And in that belief, the plan of God includes us all becoming, as it says in Ephesians 1-4, holy and blameless in His sight. while never forgetting that our predestined election makes us adopted sons through Jesus Christ. The time of this election, as I've said many times this morning already, was before the world began. Plain and simple. The eternal plan of God was fulfilled before the world began and is being worked out in time until the end of the world when the Savior returns for his bride. Number four. The purpose. That we should be blameless and holy. in his sight. This is the place where this incredible plan seems to really be breaking down. We look at ourselves, and sometimes even after a lifetime in Christ, we look at ourselves and we wonder how that description of us as holy and blameless could ever be speaking of me. How? It's impossible. You know what? Here's the wonderful part about that, at least from my understanding. There's a wonderful part. It is because it is speaking of us, because we are a holy people even though our sanctification does not necessarily show this all the time. That is our position in our Savior. He has made us to be a holy people. We have a holy Savior and He has made us to be holy. We are holy and understand this holiness in our place in Christ. It is not meaning that we are these perfect believers and we get everything right and never sin, of course. No. We are that set-apart people. That's what it's talking about ultimately. And we seek to live. See, this is where it comes in for us in a tougher way. We are to live as those set-apart from the world, from sin, from Satan. We are, as the word means, a set-apart people. God has elected us to be that set-apart holy people. We've been chosen to be that holy people in Christ. As Paul puts it in Ephesians 5, you now are light in the world. Live as children of light, which you can do because you are now one with the Lord. When God looks upon you, He doesn't see a wretched sinner. No, he sees Jesus. He looks upon you. How can he look upon me knowing who I am? Because he loves you. He didn't love you because of a certain quality of your character. He loved you in spite of the fact that there was no quality of character for most of us anyway. God looks upon you. Here's the strange reality though. He doesn't see a wretched sinner. He sees a beautiful Savior. And don't forget that 2 Corinthians 3.18 says that we are being transformed into the same image as Christ from glory to ever-increasing glory, becoming just like the Lord. This is the impetus to live like Jesus because you already are being transformed into His image from glory to ever-increasing glory. Understand it this way. How are you actually living? How you're actually living is not, of course, the final work being worked out in you. Full glory is what awaits you all and awaits all of the people of God. Number five, what made Jesus do this, friends? He did this because even from before the foundation of the world, He loved us. And His love is shown in His sacrifice for us. And for us, He gave everything. You know what He held back? Nothing! As Ephesians 2 verse 4 puts it, Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ, even while we were what? Dead in sin. It's by grace you've been saved. You know, friends, it's simply... It's simply so simple. It's because of His love. It's because of His grace that we will be with Jesus forever, friends. I don't think the reality of this will ever be easy to understand. It's hard. It's hard to work out something that goes back a few weeks. Try and work out what you did a month ago. Maybe in a situation where you bothered someone or someone gave you a rough time and you gave them back a rough time. It's hard to go back and work out something that happened a few weeks ago. And here we are talking about Jesus' sovereign election of His people which went back before the foundation of the world. And of course you can't understand that, but you can believe it and give yourself over in that belief to Jesus and embrace, embrace such everlasting, incredible love. 6. The result is found in Ephesians 1 verses 4-6, for He chose us in Him before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight, in love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the one He loves. In such an adoption, we partake of His Spirit and His nature. Further, we are all, by the way, all of the believers are predestined to adoption as sons. This means, friends, that all of God's predestined people are adopted as sons. Now, that was the legal status. As sons. Sons got the inheritance. Sons got the land. Sons got everything. In the New Covenant, the sons still get it all. In the New Covenant, the sons, in terms of the legal status, are all those men and women who have been reached and saved. from eternity on by Jesus Christ. They partake of that legal status. It includes women receiving that status as well as men because they too have received the same predestination and thus received the same status in their adoption. and all of God's richest blessings are there for all of us, friends. And because we all have access to God, we all call Him Papa, Abba, Father. And if it seems impossible to deepen the relation. It's deepened because he has made us as well to be the most intimate. I'm talking about I'm going to deepen from everything I've said our relationship because he has deepened to the most intimate that it can be possible for us to be. What has he made us to be? Not just his adopted sons. He has made us to be his bride. We are the bride of Christ. What could be more intimate in a relationship than that? He's the bridegroom. We are the bride. And finally, number seven, why did Jesus do all of this? Why? I think you can have the answer to this question if you simply look to verse 5. Notice, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will to the praise of His glory and grace. So why did Jesus do this? Ultimately, Jesus does all of this to be to the praise of His glory and grace. It's not a selfish move. It's what has to be, because all glory and all praise must go to Him. This is all, all of it, for the glory of God. As we read in the conclusion of verse 5, all is done in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glory and grace, which He has freely given us in the one He loves. Friends, everything connected with this world, this universe in which we live, Every bit of it is to be for the grace and the glory of God. The rest will be gone in the outer darkness of hell. Such as this leaves for you the warning that while you still have life on earth and you don't savingly know Jesus, repent, repent and turn in faith to Jesus so that you will be spared, spared from the torment of hell. And not only that's the absence of the negative, you'll be spared from that, but you will enjoy the beauty and the grace and the glory of God forever. I'm done. Let's pray. Father, thank you for such glory and grace. Thank you for taking us and bringing us who have trusted Christ to receive that election by God. What an election. We thank you. Thank you so much. I can't speak in this kind of sense for anyone else, but I can say I know that there was nothing, nothing in my sin-drenched, sin-filled life that warranted such grace and mercy. But I know what it was. I know it was Your love, God. Thank You for loving me. I pray that our families here, Lord, each one of our family, families of all who are here, that everyone, all of our families, would come to know you in that way, that your salvation does, even at this moment, rest upon them, and the doors for any who have not exercised faith will come open, and come open strongly, powerfully, biblically, Christ-centeredly. And Father, be with us, be with our congregation here, that we take this with gratitude and thanksgiving for the sovereign plan, purpose, and work of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We pray in your precious name. Amen.