All right, I've put two statements up on the board for you this evening, not necessarily those endorsed by the management, but things I've heard over the years, and it just got me thinking because it relates to tonight's lesson, but someone who loves Jesus will have a lot of Christmas decorations. Some of you better get working on this. The more you love Jesus, the more lights you have. So, you know, and the flip of that is if you don't do all those things, then you don't love Jesus, right? Like, well, what if you're blind and you don't see the lights? Why would you put up lights, right? Does that mean you don't love Jesus? How do you know if you love Jesus? Does God the Father put up Christmas lights? So let's have a word of prayer and then I want to talk just a bit about this and try to move a little quicker perhaps through some of this. Father, we do bow before you, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who loved us before the foundation of the world. Father, we We wrestle with that because it's hard for us to think about something happening before time, before this universe existed. And yet, your word says this, and your word is true. And we cling to this truth because We love you and we want to hear your word. We want to read your word. We want to embrace your word. We want to internalize your word. Father, give us grace this evening as we look at some aspects of eternity past that you would help us to think clearly and to reason well and to submit to the authority and the sufficiency of your word. And we will thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well, let's erase some nonsense here. Last time, on my notes anyway, we stopped at the bottom of page number one. We last looked at John 17 and verse 24. That the Father loved the Son before creation, which is true. Let me give you one, two, three, six Well, five other references related to the Father loving the Son. I'm not going to look all these up this evening, but John chapter 3 and verse 35 tells us the Father loves the Son. John 3, 35. John 10 and verse 17. I guess I can write them up here. So 3, 35, 10, 17, is it? 15, nine. And then the rest are in John 17, verse 23, 24, and 26. So the father loves the son. With an agape, or the verb form, agapao, he loves the son. That's one of the reasons, by the way, why we should love the son. right, because we want to be like the father. We want to please the father and we should do what the father does. And if he loves the son, we should love the son as well. Now, there's one, and again, this is one of the sayings just because there's only one verse doesn't mean then that all of these are more important than this other single one, right? But in John 14, So John 14 and verse 31, the son loves the father. That's the only verse that I could find that clearly says that the son loves the father. It doesn't mean that the father loves the son more than the son loves the father, just because there's more verses. That's not how you interpret things. However, this is an interesting observation. Now, both of those groups of verses on this are related to agape love. There's one other one, John 5 20. which is the father loves the son with a philia type of love. Now, philia, or phileo, the verb, philia is normally the idea of, those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s, the expression getting good vibes from, okay? It's just you enjoy. You can tell you're on the same page, I enjoy being with you type of affection and love. So the father not only has an agape type love for the son, he also has, he enjoys. This is the word, by the way, for older ladies to bring the younger women to their senses and how to love their husbands. Okay? It doesn't say older ladies teach the younger women how to have an agape love for their husbands. It's this one. It's philia. Now, I think a lot of that is because the younger ladies were marrying, usually, much older men. And normally it was not a romantic type of love by which you entered into a marriage relationship. you will be getting married. And you will be marrying this guy. So you had to learn how to love him and how to have that sort of affection for him. If the Father, and again, we saw the nonsense I had on the board earlier, if Jesus didn't, if Christmas lights have nothing to do with your love for Christ, right? It's meaningless. It doesn't matter what you do with it. But the Father loves the Son, and in eternity past, they enjoyed a loving relationship, right? That's an amazing thing, and that love, and they would have been, could have been completely satisfied without ever creating the universe, right? There still would have been love, right? Because it is within the Trinity. There's love there. Now, the father chooses to express his love, not just for the son. He chooses to express it toward the world, right? God the father loved the world in such a way, what? That he gave his only begotten son. So just because he loves His son does not mean that his love then excludes all other objects of love. He can love the son with perfect love, but he can also love the world in such a way that he willingly sacrifices his son whom he has loved from eternity past. Does that make John 3.16 a little more staggering in its implications? Instead of just seeing it in the end zone at a football game, right? No offense. Go ahead, put your signs up. But my point is, we just kind of rattle John 3.16 off sometimes without pondering that from all of eternity past, the Father loved the Son. And then when he in his creation of the universe and all that's involved with that and the decrees related to all of human history and so on, and all of the rebellion and all of the treason against him, he chose to give the object of his eternal love to the world. Wow. That's something we're going to wrestle with, I think, for all of eternity future. Pondering that. So, at the bottom, we have those expressions, before the world and from all eternity. And you see the... I've broken them up into these different Heading or subheadings here in the Gospels we see before creation began The son shared glory with the father we talked about we had a good time talking about that last time I enjoyed that it was helpful for me and the father loved the son before creation so that's where we stopped last time and Let's go to Matthew 13 if we can. Matthew chapter 13 and verse 35. Verse 34. All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and he was not speaking to them without a parable. So that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world. So taken from Psalm 78 and verse two. But what Matthew is recording for us is that There are certain things that the Father has chosen to hide, right? And we know from a very familiar passage from the book of Deuteronomy, right? There are secret things and there are revealed things, right? Father doesn't have to tell us everything. Actually, he didn't have to tell us anything, right? But he chose to. He chose to reveal certain things here in Matthew 13. And as Jesus, this is one of those earth-shaking things, Matthew 13 comes after Matthew 12. I know, hugely profound thing. But what's the significance of chapter 13 and chapter 12? Chapter 12, Jesus is officially rejected by the Jewish leadership. They have written him off saying that he's demon-possessed. Chapter 13 then is, all right, we'll speak to you in parables. You have rejected everything that I have given you as clearly as possible because Jesus is the perfect teacher. There were no problems with his communication, right? The problem was not Jesus's capability as a teacher. The problem was the human heart of those who were listening. Which, by the way, is akin to in Ezekiel, when God says to Ezekiel, I'm going to give you a hard forehead. Well, that's helpful. But there's a reason for that. Why? Because I'm sending you to people of hard hearts. So the issue is you need to be hard, you need to be resilient, you need to stand against this because you're going up against the people who refuse to listen. It's a similar, yeah, it's a Klingon thing, yeah. If that will help your illustration, right? Think of Worf there, that's kind of the, now Ezekiel's gonna look like Worf for the rest of your life. But it's, but that's the word picture that he uses. You need to have a hard, you know, a hard, in a right sense, a hard head to respond so that you persevere in the face of opposition to biblical teaching. So in Ezekiel, that's in chapter three. Jesus, again, Jesus' problem is, the problem is not with Jesus, the problem is with the listeners. And so these things have been hidden since the foundation of the world. At some point in time, he chooses to make some of those things known, right? There are certain things that he chooses not to reveal. There are certain things he does choose to reveal. Matthew chapter 25 is an interesting expression as well, where he says that this kingdom that has, Matthew chapter 25 and verse 30, let's go to 31, just to get the context. But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, which is what he wants restored, right? In John 17. It's going to be restored because this verse says he's coming in his glory. So it has to have been restored. He comes in his glory and all the angels with him. Now, does that mean that God is going to empty heaven and just be sitting in heaven all by himself, so to speak? All the angels will be gone? It's a possibility. There are some who think that. I'm not disinclined to that. But when he does this, then he will sit on his glorious throne and all the nations will be gathered before him. And he will separate them from one another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will put the sheep on his right, which is the position of acceptance and honor, and the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed of my father. Inherit the kingdom. What kind of kingdom? which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. The kingdom stands prepared. Now, that doesn't mean the kingdom is being fully implemented, but it's ready to go. And it's ready to go for those who are the blessed of the Father, those who have responded rightly to Christ. So the kingdom stands prepared. And that's similar, though not the exact same thing, but it's similar to what Jesus says in John 14 about going to prepare a place for you. And again, on that concept, I've heard Christians say, wow, if God could make the universe in six days and it's really beautiful, just imagine how beautiful our homes will be in heaven after 2,000 years of work. No, that's not what it means. No, don't go there. But you hear Christians say that. No, that's no. But the point is, he has gone to prepare. And the kingdom has been prepared. Now how do we know who these blessed of the Father are? Look at verse 35. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. Naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. And the righteous will answer him. Notice, by the way, that Jesus knows how people will respond before they do. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger and invite you in or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the king will answer and say to them, truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me. Now, what's that referencing? It seems to be a reference in this context of how you treated people during the tribulation time period. Are you going to stand up and identify with followers of Christ? It's going to cost you, right? And if you've responded rightly there and done these things that Jesus describes, that is the basis for being able to inherit the kingdom, which has been prepared for you. since the foundation of the world. All right, let's do one more in the Gospels here. Luke chapter 11 and verse 15. And let's back up to verse 45 to get the paragraph. Now one of the scholars of the law answered and said to him, teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too. But he said, woe to you scholars of the law as well. Now, he's just been addressing the Pharisees, right? Pronouncing the woes on the Pharisees in the previous couple paragraphs. Woe to you, scholars of the law, as well, for you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers. The scribes and the Pharisees had invented hundreds of rules and regulations that had become so burdensome. Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets, but your father has killed them. In other words, you give lip service to them, but you're in that same You're in the same line of people. So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers because it was they who killed them and you build their tombs. For this reason also the wisdom of God said, I will send to them prophets and apostles and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute so that the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world. may be charged against this generation from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God. Let me just stop right there before I finish that verse. Understand what Jesus is saying there from the first book of the Old Testament to the last book of the Old Testament. which is what? Second Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible, right? So from Genesis to Second Chronicles, in other words, the entire span of the Old Testament. That's what he's addressing. Yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation. Woe to you, scholars of the law, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you hindered those who were entering. And when he left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile and to question him closely on many subjects, plotting to catch him in something he might say. So the point of this expression from the foundation of the world is just telling us from Genesis all the way through, all the way through 2 Chronicles, there has been a long line of people who have been persecuted by religious people, right? So it has gone on since creation. All right, before we leave the gospels here, can we, are there any questions or comments before we move on to the epistles here? All right, well let's look at Ephesians chapter one then, Now Ephesians 1 and verse 4 is part of that extremely long sentence. I know your teachers don't want you to use really long sentences. Paul did not get that memo. So he wrote Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 through 14 is one sentence in the original language, okay? And it's just one of the richest theological sentences in human history, okay? Might not be good English grammar, but that's all right, right? We value theology above English grammar. So what happened before creation began? Look at Ephesians 1 and verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world." Now, why did He choose us? So that we would be holy and blameless before Him. Now, some translations will put a comma between Him and the word in, So holy and blameless before him and then put in love going with the next expression in verse five. In love by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace. Now I'm gonna pause there because I don't wanna I don't have the time to go through the rest of that this evening, but the point is this. Believers were chosen. You were elect in Christ before creation. In other words, what? Before you existed, God chose you. I remember many years ago doing a Bible study in New Ulm, taking the group of people sitting in the living room through this, and one man just got really violently upset with me teaching election. I said, Isn't that what it says? That's what it says. Now, I wasn't raised to be Calvinistic in any way, shape, or form. My theological training was not overly Calvinistic. But what do you do with verse four? You may not like using names like Calvinism and Arminianism and all sorts of other isms, but okay, then set those aside. But what do you do with verse four? Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. So the Father has chosen believers in Christ before creation, before you existed, to pick up Paul's argument from Romans 9, before you had done anything, good or bad. Election, salvation is all of God, right? It's all of God. What could you contribute to verse four? You weren't even in existence. Then I don't have a choice. Well, you do have a choice. God does grant you the capability of choosing, but he has chosen believers in Christ before the foundation of the world and with the express purpose that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. So his purpose of choosing us is that we would be able to stand before him in spiritual purity. You don't bring spiritual purity to the equation. You bring spiritual impurity, right? You bring, and isn't that what he gets into in chapter two of Ephesians, that you were not only spiritually impure, you were spiritually dead. You don't bring even one minuscule aspect of life to the equation. You were spiritually dead. But He made you alive. So in eternity past, the Father in infinite wisdom and infinite grace and infinite love chose believers to be in Christ. Wow. Now, you say, well, that doesn't seem fair. It's not fair. It's called grace. Go ahead. Are you thinking of Hebrews 12? without holiness or sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12 and verse 14. That would be, it would be related because holiness is the expected outworking of genuine salvation. Now it doesn't mean it's perfect. We're not perfect in our holiness this side of heaven, right? But we Or to say it another way, we are not sinless, but we do sin less and less. That's an important thing. We never arrive at spiritual perfection this side of heaven, but we do become more and more holy. Yeah. So is that kind of where you were going? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I know there are those who would disagree that there's nobody perfect, but the New Testament, all the scripture is really clear that none of us are sinless in this life. No believers ever arrive at sinless perfection. And if you think you do, then I would argue that that itself is an indication of your imperfection, right? So, he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him in love. Now, similar concept, let's jump to 1 Peter 1, because these words are 1 Peter 1, and let's look at, let's back up to verse 17 to get the paragraph. I gotta move my pulpit back over here. The light's better over here, so. Now you can't see the board, but all right. Verse 17, but if you, and if you address as father the one who impartially judges according to each one's work. Now again, is this the, the, the biblically awesome thought of that. The father will impartially judge according to each one's work. No one's going to deceive him. No one's going to earn anything. No one's going to buy him off. There's no bribes. So if this is true, Then conduct yourselves in fear, or I would argue, I think a helpful synonym is in awe, during the time of your sojourn. Live in awe of God, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your futile conduct inherited from your forefathers. In other words, salvation is not something you can purchase, either with good works or with amounts of money or donations to whatever causes, but with precious blood. as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but appeared in these last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, again, which is what he prayed for, John 17, so that your faith and hope are in God. Now, the word we want to look at in this context goes with the expression before the foundation of the world, Jesus was foreknown. And I've typed in the Greek word for you there, prognosko. We get an English word in the medical terminology as prognosis is related to this. But the Greek word, okay, there's... When he talks about something being foreknown, He is not simply saying that God knows everything ahead of time. It's more than that. That's all part of God's omniscience, His all-knowing. He knows all things, but to foreknow somebody, again, is not God looking down through the tunnel of time and looking to see who's going to pick Jesus, and then the Father picks those people. That's not what it's referencing. The word is used to refer to a choice, to be chosen So in this sense, Christ is chosen before creation. He was chosen to do what? As it says, to shed his precious blood, a lamb that was unblemished and spotless. So the Father foreknew Christ or chose Christ to be the sacrifice for our sins. Now that doesn't mean that Jesus, oh man, it's not that. Because that would be a sinful, selfish response. Jesus responded, now again, we have to be careful with this and I know there are some some Reformed theologians who actually more or less have written out the conversation in eternity past. And I think we have to be really careful on that. But nonetheless, there seems to have been, and I don't want to say a moment in time because this is before time began, but there was within the triune God dividing of responsibilities. The Father does not come to the cross. The Spirit does not get sent to the cross. Imagine if the Spirit had been sent to the cross. There would be no shed blood. Right? You can't make different things out of turnips, but you can't get blood out of a spirit. Right? There has to be humanity added to deity. And that's what we're coming into December talking about Christmas and the incarnation. It is the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. He chooses to take upon himself a literal, real human body with human desires like hunger and thirst, taking a nap, right? That's all part of being human. So you get to say, well, I'm being like Jesus. I need to take a nap. And that would be in one sense, correct, right? But Jesus had to do that. So he would have blood, genuine human blood to shed on the cross. It had to be that way. So the father, and the Son and the Spirit seem to have, and again, I mentioned some Reformed theologians, there seems to have been some organization that took place, if you will, in which the Father said, I will send the Son. The Son says, I will go. And the Spirit says, and I will be sent. by the Father and the Son, right? Jesus addresses that in John 14, 15, and 16. And then Jesus, in the book, we saw this in Acts chapter one and Acts chapter two, that the Father sends the promise of the Spirit, right? He doesn't send Jesus again. At that point, he sends the Spirit, okay? So this organizing of responsibilities within the Trinity, it doesn't make Jesus less than in any way, shape, or form. Jesus is not in his The fancy word is in his theanthropic person, in his godness and his humanity, in his incarnation, Jesus is not less than God. He is not in any way, in his essence, any different than the Father or the Spirit, but he has a different job. and his job was to come and to live. Again, the incarnation is meant to be, as Paul says in 1 Timothy, a mystery, right? That the eternal Son of God, the infinite God who fills the universe, chooses to live as a one-celled being in the womb of Mary. How can that cell possess all of deity within that cell, right? That's an amazing thought. And obviously it expands and all that, and we get all that. But God took upon himself flesh. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, right? John 1 verse 14. Not the Father and not the Spirit. God, the Son. And that's what Peter is arguing here in 1 Peter 1. That the Son was foreknown before the foundation of the world, so that's when the decision was made. But at the end of verse 20, but he appeared in these last times for the sake of you. So the choice was made in eternity past. Jesus's coming to earth was not an accident. It was not plan B. It was not an alternate ending. It was an eternal purpose, an eternal choice by God the Father, of which the Son fully embraced, right? Even though it meant He would not, as we talked last time, He would not be able to display His glory for that period of time. The Spirit doesn't give up His glory. The Father doesn't give up the display of His glory. The Son does, right? Which, this was many years ago, and I, there's an author who's written on the Trinity, Bruce Ware. His book on the Trinity is one of the rare, I wrote to him and I told him this. He doesn't know me, but I wrote to him and I thanked him and I said this was one of those rare books that when you read and you pause every so often and it leads me to worship. more than almost any other theological book I've read. So his book on the Trinity, it's only 120 pages or so. But as Ware explains this, you just marvel at the humility of Christ. Which is, again, back to, we talked last week, Philippians 2. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And Ware goes on to take that and then expands on that and says, these are the types of things that are to be demonstrated in our relationships within church, our relationships within our home, relationships within husband-wife relationships, parent-child relationships. But it leads you, at least it led me, to a sense of awe of Christ. He could have just stayed with the Father, right? Could have just stayed with the Father and just said, you know what, Spirit, you can go. But he didn't do that. He chose to submit, I have come to do the will of Him who sent me. The Gospel of John is just full of those types of expressions of Jesus coming at the will, to do the will of the Father. He says, is not to please himself, but to please him who sent me. So Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. I wanted to get all the way through this. I'm not going to. All right, I better stop there because otherwise I'm going to take too long. So any questions or comments? I hope this has helped you some to to lead you to a greater sense of awe of Christ, that He willingly submitted, willingly embraced this. My food is to do the will of Him, right? John 4, right? Aren't you hungry? Well, yeah, but there's something more important than physical food, right? That's John 4. And it's to do the will of Him who sent me. And not because Jesus was saying, well, but I didn't really want to come. That's not what it says. But the Father sent me. And I came willingly, and it's my delight to do so. So I trust it helps in you thinking through this. So we'll stop there.