[0:00] The following message is given by Walt Alexander, lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee. For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at TrinityGraceAthens.com.
[0:14] Ephesians chapter 1, verse 11. In Him, that is Christ, in Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory.
[0:45] In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, we're sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory.
[1:09] This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Amen. There is no more important question for any generation than, who are you?
[1:22] In past generations, people would answer that question by looking largely outward. They would look to the people in their life to tell them, their parents, their teachers, their pastors, to tell them who they are.
[1:36] One fascinating illustration is from the movie The Help. It chronicles the story of African-American domestic workers in the Jim Crow South.
[1:46] It centers on two characters, Abilene and Minnie, who work in the homes of wealthy white women in Mississippi. They are the help.
[1:57] They take care of all sorts of tasks around the house, cooking and cleaning and laundry, but especially the children. One of the young children is a little girl named May.
[2:09] When she's pressured into thinking about her appearance and wait at a very young age, Abilene gives her the help she needs. In a particularly vivid scene with broken English, Abilene assures her, you is kind.
[2:28] You is smart. You is important. As the movie goes along, these are words May never forgot.
[2:40] Presumably for the rest of her life, when she wondered who she was, wandered off the path, so to speak, she remembered what she had been told.
[2:50] I am kind. I am smart. I am important. She lived out of what she was told about herself. From outside her.
[3:01] By looking outward, she discovered who she was. By becoming more prevalent with at least the dawn of romanticism, people began answering the question, who are you, by looking inward.
[3:14] Taylor referenced a little bit of that a moment ago. One German philosopher in 1773, in a statement that could be included in any recent Disney movie, he says, all our actions should be self-determined.
[3:30] That's an incredibly provocative statement, if you understand philosophy throughout the years. In accordance with our, so self-determined, in accordance with our innermost character, we must be true to ourselves.
[3:45] That's 1773. It's hard to exaggerate how pervasive this council is now. Nearly every movie and book and singer shares the same advice, as if they have all the same information.
[4:02] They're all singing it. No one can tell you who you are but you. There's nothing more important than being true to who you think you are. Now, while there is value in looking outward to answer this question, who are you, and looking inward, there is some value.
[4:19] It's most important that we continually look upward. We began this series saying the book of Ephesians is one long answer to the question, who are you?
[4:32] The book of Ephesians is one long answer to your identity, to who you are, to what really actually makes you, you. And it's not this internal discovery that you must find, but an external discovery in Jesus Christ.
[4:48] Thirty times in Ephesians, the Apostle Paul uses the phrase, in Christ, to refer to who you are. When you are asked who you are, the Bible, the Apostle Paul, the book of Ephesians wants you to think about what is true of you in Christ before you think of anything else.
[5:07] And after the greeting, the Apostle Paul goes through these spiritual blessings, and these things in so many ways are meant to remind you of who you are in Christ.
[5:20] You are blessed. You are chosen. You are adopted as sons to him.
[5:32] You are redeemed. And this morning, what we're going to see is you are his possession. You belong to him. You've been rescued by him. You've been plucked out of the fire, so to speak.
[5:44] You belong to him. You're his treasured possession out of all the peoples of the earth. In a word where we're going, you are God's possession, saved by him to belong to him forever. You are God's possession, saved by him to belong to him forever.
[5:58] We're going to break this out. Three declarative statements. First, your salvation was ordered according to the will of God. Your salvation was ordered according to the will of God.
[6:09] Just a moment ago, our main theme is you are God's possession, saved by him to belong to him forever. But look down at verse 11. It says, in him we have obtained an inheritance.
[6:21] I'm saying the point of this is you are God's possession, but it looks immediately we have obtained an inheritance. Our assumption is that that means we've been given a share of some great wealth or estate or property.
[6:37] And of course we have in Jesus Christ, as the apostle Peter tells us, we've been born to a living hope, to an inheritance, imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
[6:48] But that's not the emphasis of this verse. This word for inheritance here is only used, or obtained inheritance here, only used one time in the whole Bible and never used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament either.
[7:03] But along with Calvin, John Calvin, Bruce, John Stott, P.T. O'Brien, and more, I believe the meaning of inheritance here is that we've been claimed by God. It's not so much talking about riches that we've gained, though we have gained these things in Christ.
[7:20] It's talking about we've been claimed by God as his inheritance, as his possession, as his people. Like when the Lord sent Moses to the Pharaoh, he said, let my people go.
[7:36] And look at what he said to them after he brought them out. And Deuteronomy 4, 19 and 20, beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them.
[7:52] Things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the people under the heaven. So beware that you start bowing down to these things again. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt to be a people of his own inheritance as you are to him.
[8:12] You get the idea from those verses. The peoples of the world have the moon and the stars, the host of heaven, but you have me. You are my people.
[8:25] That's the thread running through our Bible. I will be your God and you will be my people. I brought you out of the iron furnace and our deliverance is even greater.
[8:37] God has secured us forever in Jesus Christ. And so you have an inheritance in that you belong to God. He is yours and you are his.
[8:52] I love 1 Peter 2 applying so many of these Old Testament names to the people of God. He says, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.
[9:12] You're a people, but you're a people that belong to a person, the Lord himself. And this great salvation is unequivocally ordered by the will of God.
[9:26] Running through this long run-on sentence from verse 3 all the way to verse 14 are tons of purpose clauses. These statements that underline why he's done this or that.
[9:39] And he has another one in verse 11b. So in him we've obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
[9:53] Paul said in verse 4, you were chosen before the foundation of the world because you had been predestined. Now he says you've become his people, his treasured possession, because you've been predestined by God.
[10:05] Now you may be thinking, oh great, another Sunday talking about election and predestination. Give it up for the pastor. But we're called to declare the whole counsel of God.
[10:22] We have to let this verse speak. If you notice, look back there, words that emphasize God's careful planning and sovereign will pile up one upon the other in this verse.
[10:37] Predestined, purpose, works, counsel, will. And the things to which God's careful planning and sovereign work include are all things.
[10:52] It couldn't be a more massive verse in scope. All things are coming under his purpose, works, counsel, and will. So it's not just that they pile up though, they make an argument in the way this verse unfolds.
[11:07] A careful emphasis is carried through the combination of these words. He says all things, works all things according to the counsel of his will.
[11:19] Counsel. Counsel speaks to considering the options and weighing the best course of action. Without counsel, Proverbs says plans fail.
[11:30] Why? Because sometimes you need more than your own mind to figure out what the will of the Lord is. Obviously, God needs no one outside of his mind though.
[11:41] Counsel is talking about a wisdom weighing what is best course of action. So counsel speaks to considering the option and weighing what is best.
[11:52] Will speaks to determining and deciding on the best course of action. So the Lord in the counsel of his will weighed the options and then selected the best course of action.
[12:07] Working points to bringing about this best course of action. So the counsel is this divine deliberation to consider the best course.
[12:18] The will speaks to deciding and determining the best course. The working speaks to bringing about the best course of action in the midst of working all things according to his end.
[12:29] So we're meant to see that all things are ordered by God's wisdom, will, and power. Stephen Charnick, my friend, talked about it.
[12:43] I've been reading a big book of his this year. He says, His will orders, his wisdom guides, and his power effects. That's what you see in that verse.
[12:55] His will as the spring and his power as the worker are expressed. Psalm 115, he has done whatsoever he pleased in the heavens and the earth. Psalm 148, he commanded and they were created.
[13:09] And all three expressed who works all things according to the counsel of his will. What's there? What's he saying? His will orders. His wisdom guides.
[13:21] His power affects. Paul could hardly be clearer. However, our being a part of the people of God is not by chance or choice, but by the careful planning and sovereign work of God.
[13:36] Years ago, I read the biography of missionary Adoniram Judson. It's a wonderful, to the golden shores, wonderful biography. Judson was a pastor's son raised in Massachusetts.
[13:51] When of age, he went away to college. In college, he met a man, you know, a friend in college named Jacob Eames. Eames becomes a close friend.
[14:03] They began to do what college dudes do and argue about philosophy and different things. And Eames studied deism with Judson and slowly persuaded him to reject his strong Christian beliefs.
[14:18] By graduation, Judson abandoned Christianity completely and kept it from his parents, knowing how burdening it would be.
[14:31] Upon graduation, with great fear and trepidation, he tells his parents that he's going to go live his own life. He takes to the streets.
[14:43] He moves to the city, New York City. Chases the thrills. He lives without restraint. And like so often, it happens before long. He's disappointed and discouraged.
[14:54] Life of his dreams isn't paying off. As he had dreamt, he finds no meaning or purpose in all that he's chasing. All that philosophy now plays out in his life.
[15:06] So he takes off on the run again, but now he has nowhere to go. If he returns home, he's sure to face his parents' disappointment, frustration, sadness, and grief.
[15:18] So he rides on. Late one night, he comes to an inn to get a room. The innkeeper says, sleep may be tough.
[15:28] There's a man critically ill in the next room. Throughout the night, Judson says he hears the coughing. He hears people coming in and out of the room as care was taking place in the room for this man.
[15:44] His mind begins to race through the night. He grows restless. Is that man ready to die? Does he know what will happen if he dies tonight?
[15:54] What happens when we die? Am I ready to die? Judson's asking himself all these questions throughout a fitful night of sleep. The next morning, before rushing out, he asked the innkeeper, did the man die?
[16:10] He said, yes. He said, what was his name? The innkeeper said, Jacob Eames. Jacob Eames.
[16:24] It's his friend from college. Died in the room next door. Friend that lured him away from his Christian beliefs. Judson says he could hardly move for hours.
[16:36] He could not stop pondering death. If Eames is right, then death is meaningless. Unimportant. Just the end. But if Eames is wrong, he's lost to all.
[16:47] Lost to everyone. And lost in hell. Judson said, writing about this night, this could not, simply could not be pure coincidence.
[17:01] He realized the all-powerful God intervened to make sure all his running would lead him to a long night of listening to his old friend die.
[17:12] And the all-powerful God intervened to lead him there so that he could intervene to rescue him from the wrath to come. He realized that God had brought him there to save him.
[17:22] To rescue him. And Ephesians 1.11 is saying the same thing to you. Your salvation is no different.
[17:33] Salvation is not by choice or chance, but by the careful, planning, and sovereign work of God. Each of the realities we've studied in these verses underline this truth.
[17:44] We're chosen before we've been born. Before we could do anything good to impress the Lord or make us a worthy, free agent.
[17:55] We were adopted while we were orphans on the run with no hope and without God. We were redeemed when we were captive to sin.
[18:05] Unable to free ourselves from sin. We are his possession. What all these verses are emphasizing is that our situation is so serious, so desperate, that our salvation could only be accomplished by the careful, planning, and sovereign work of God.
[18:20] As H.B. Charles says, of salvation. In salvation we do our part and God does his. We do the sinning. He does the saving.
[18:31] That's the truth. That's the reality. Sometimes we push back on these truths and defend the fact that we have a choice. And we do have a responsibility.
[18:43] We have to respond. But the constant defense of our choice misses the reality of our condition. It misses the fact that we're orphans, that we're captive, that we're dead in trespasses and sins, and dead people don't answer the phone.
[18:56] It's calling us to see that we need God to save us or we will not be saved because we will only choose to run the other way.
[19:09] Always and forever. And so, those who hope in Christ might be to the prey of his glory.
[19:20] Point two, your salvation was sealed through the preaching of the gospel. Your salvation was sealed through the preaching of the gospel. Paul continued, verse 13, with the same structure we've seen in each new section.
[19:35] He continues with this, in him, this preposition. And then him, a pronoun referencing Jesus Christ. But if you look down there in 13, the structure changes slightly. In him, you.
[19:46] Again and again, we've seen in him, we. In him, we. In him, we. In him, you. All. Instead of we.
[19:58] Who is Paul referring to? A number of the smart guys say this refers to Gentiles in the church. They argue that verses 11 and 12 refer to Jews who have come to faith in him.
[20:10] We, Jews. Because Paul was a Jew before he became a Christian. They argue that verse 13 refers to Gentiles who have come to faith in him. You. I don't find that argument convincing.
[20:24] I don't find it convincing because of the way this is laid out. In him, we. In him, we. In him, we. All along. It's unconvincing to me that the readers would know that in him, we. In verse 11, references to the Jews.
[20:35] Now, if you're just getting lost here, I'm sorry. It'll be quick. It'll be over. You know? So I don't find that convincing that the readers would know that in him, we. We references Jews and not them. I don't find it convincing that Paul would use the word for predestination again, but have a different audience in mind.
[20:55] It seems rather that Paul is speaking directly to the listener here. He's been repeatedly saying in him, we, to emphasize all the things all Christians share in Jesus Christ.
[21:08] But suddenly he says, in him, you also. Reaching out from the pages and pointing the finger at them to say, in him, you also have believed. And been sealed in him.
[21:22] Paul knows they are discouraged. And we know that's one of the reasons he writes this letter. He's seeking to encourage them. Look at chapter 3, verse 13. You can kind of take one finger over there.
[21:36] He says, so I ask you not to lose heart over what I'm suffering for you, which is your glory. So he's writing to them to help them not lose heart. He's writing to them because they're discouraged.
[21:48] Maybe they're discouraged because they'll never visit them again. If you remember Ephesians, the last visit he had with them was in Miletus. He met the elders there. And they wept when they left one another. One of the most beautiful passages in the Bible about a pastor's love for the church.
[22:05] They knew if he's in chains, then he can't visit them again. Perhaps they're discouraged because they're not able to help him. How can we help him? Send relief.
[22:16] He's on house arrest. Send him some money or something. But we can't help him more than that. You ever feel like, man, I wish I could just do more when someone's suffering. Maybe that's why.
[22:27] Perhaps they're discouraged because they need help with conflict in the church. Because of circumstances they're facing from an ungodly culture. Regardless, discouragement is a temptation we know so well.
[22:39] It's precisely in discouragement where we're tempted to think that what is true for all is not true for us. It's what's generally true for all Christians cannot be specifically true for us after what we've done.
[22:58] After what we're facing. And so Paul encourages them. I just want to pause for a moment and talk about the gift of encouragement.
[23:09] The greatest encourager in the Bible is a man named Joseph. In the early church, he was so encouraging that he was given the nickname Barnabas, which means son of encouragement.
[23:23] You want to know what God values? Look at the way he values Barnabas. He values encouragement. Sinclair Ferguson imagines what it would be like to spend an hour with Barnabas.
[23:39] He says, How sad to be a part of a discussion in which the name of a Christian is mentioned and to hear his or her reputation stabbed in the back by the words of others. Most of us have all too painful contact with people who see their chief ministry as tearing fellow believers down to side.
[24:01] By contrast, at the end of an hour in the company of Barnabas, most of us would be able to leave feeling taller and more able to press on in serving the Lord.
[24:15] That beautiful picture. That's what God is doing. That's what Paul is doing. Coming alongside this church and calling them to stand a little taller and to keep pressing on.
[24:30] He says, Don't lose heart. You heard the word of truth and believe. Look in verse 13. So he gets radically specific and begins using this second person pronoun in him.
[24:43] You also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believe in him, even though their salvation was planned before the foundation of the world.
[24:54] Paul calls them to remember when they responded. Salvation does include faith-filled, active response. They heard.
[25:05] They believed. They believed. Paul said, don't you remember? Don't you remember when you believed? I don't know how many times I've said, think similar to friends who are no longer walking with the Lord.
[25:17] I remember what happened. What are you doing, man? You believed. I was with you. God has purposed that all who come to saving faith come to it through hearing the gospel from human lives.
[25:35] There's a few miraculous conversions you might read about, but the lion's share through the faithful preaching of the gospel. How do they believe unless they hear?
[25:47] How can they hear unless someone is sinned? Believing that God is sovereign over salvation does not mean preaching the gospel to the lost is unnecessary. Believing that God is sovereign over salvation means preaching the gospel to the lost will be fruitful.
[26:00] That's the truth. Don't lose heart. Don't lose heart. You believe. You heard and believed. It's not describing a sequence of events, but just this suddenly, just like Lydia in Acts 16, when she hears the apostle Paul begin to talk to her about Jesus Christ.
[26:19] It says the Lord opened her heart to believe. That's the way it happened. And so immediately Paul said, don't lose heart. You were sealed with the Holy Spirit. Verse 13.
[26:31] You believed in him. We're sealed with the Holy Spirit. It's almost like in verse 13, Paul's just jumping around, you know. In him, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him.
[26:43] We're sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit. He's just excited to encourage him. He's bouncing around, ping-ponging around in this passage, calling them to remember that they were sealed by the Spirit.
[26:56] Owners branded cattle with a certain seal to make clear who the cattle belonged to. Owners branded slaves with a certain seal or piercing in the ear to indicate the same things.
[27:07] We do the same thing with animals and Tupperware and tools. You know, one of my friends, he's a big, tall, white guy.
[27:18] And I was helping him in his house. And all of his tools say BTWG. I'm like, what in the world does that mean? What does that mean? He said, well, my nickname and my construction guy was Big Tall White Guy.
[27:32] So all his tools, you get the wrench out, BTWG, you know. Hey, give me back my tool. It says BTWG. Well, God's doing the same thing.
[27:44] We mark our things to, you know, keep people's hands off of them, to protect them. God's doing the same thing. And the act of conversion, he seals his spirit.
[27:55] He puts his spirit upon you to seal you, to say, that one's mine. That one belongs to me. Oh, the affection in this so rich.
[28:06] John Stott says, cattle, even slaves were branded with a seal from the master in order to indicate to whom they belong. But such seals were external while God's is on the heart. He puts his spirit within his people in order to make them as his own.
[28:19] God seals us with his spirit, his holy spirit. Where's the last reference to that in verse 4 when he says, holy and blameless for him, set apart for him, saint unto him.
[28:31] That's what he does in his spirit. That that one belongs to me to live for me all the days of their life to live holy and blameless before me. But what is this sealing?
[28:43] Striking language. It only comes up a couple times in the New Testament. This is the work of the spirit causing you to be born again. 1 Corinthians 2 says, no one understands the things of God unless God makes it known.
[28:59] Natural man can't understand these things. And so the spirit, as you hear and believe the gospel, the spirit, God puts his spirit in you to bear witness to the truth.
[29:09] The spirit causes you to be born again and to cling to Christ in this sudden, simultaneously marvelous work where you're hearing the gospel with your physical ears.
[29:25] And yet the eyes and ears of your heart are suddenly open to trust in Christ. It's the work of conversion. So what Paul is talking about here, and don't lose heart, you believe, don't lose heart, you were sealed.
[29:40] He's talking about two sides to the same event, this wonderful event where there's this human side of hearing and believing. Bless the men who preach the gospel.
[29:50] I remember, bless and praise the man who preached the gospel to me. He's 83 years old right now. Bless the Lord for sending a man to preach the gospel to me.
[30:01] But bless the Lord for putting his spirit in me to cling to Jesus Christ. And so it's not mere belief that we need.
[30:16] It's the certainty that only can come from the work of the spirit. Sometimes I fear in the South, we don't so much believe in Jesus as we're inoculated with truth about him. When you give someone an inoculation or a vaccine, which we know a bit about, you give them a little bit of the disease to help them become immune to the rest of it.
[30:39] In the South, I think a little bit of knowledge about Jesus that we get growing up keeps us immune from the real Jesus.
[30:51] It's a dangerous thing to be born in a Christian home. Keeps us from following him and living as if he is all that matters.
[31:10] That's why people, many in the South, have an appearance of godliness. You know, they say we're in the buckle of the belt. Many have an appearance of godliness.
[31:20] Many attend church. Many say the right things. Many have the fish on the back of their car. I don't have one because I'm still not driving in a manner worthy of the gospel. It's a work in progress.
[31:34] He began that good work. Maybe in heaven I'll have a fish. They appear to do the right things, but they haven't tasted the goodness of God.
[31:52] They don't walk in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Spirit. They don't know the power of God. They can't say with Paul about the surpassing work of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.
[32:05] On the day of judgment, the great divide will not be between those who know Jesus and those who reject him. The great divide will be between those who know Jesus and those who know about him.
[32:22] It's not enough, beloved, to know about this Jesus. Not enough to keep him outside of you. Know things about him. To be inoculated from throwing your life to him.
[32:35] It's not enough. And so I ask you, have you tasted the goodness of God? Can you say with a psalmist, taste and see that the Lord is good? Do you have eyes in your heart?
[32:46] Do you know the power of his resurrection? Do you know the freedom of forgiveness? Can you sing, I once was blind, but now I see? Can you really sing it?
[32:58] Have you been born again? Have you been sealed by the Spirit? Have you felt the force of Christianity? If Christianity is a system of beliefs, you will never be saved.
[33:09] It's not a system of belief. It's about uniting you to a person in the power of the Spirit. That's what I offer you. I offer you Jesus Christ. I don't offer you something to make you feel good for the rest of the week.
[33:22] I offer you a person who is calling you to come to him and live as if he is the only thing that matters because he is your salvation.
[33:33] So come to him. Cling to him. Point three, your salvation is secure in the down payment of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is secure in the down payment of the Holy Spirit.
[33:48] Paul continues it and praises God for the continued work of the Spirit. Look at verse 14. Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it?
[34:03] The idea is the Holy Spirit does not just seal us. The Holy Spirit is the deposit. You know, seal points to a once-in-time act.
[34:16] But this deposit points to something we possess, something that remains with us all the way until the end, until we see the Lord face to face.
[34:28] So the Spirit is like this deposit. He's the earnest money. He is the down payment. He's the guarantee of the inheritance that he awaits. Just like Lewis said, he is the news of a better country.
[34:42] That you have a share in this better country. The certainty that there's an inheritance waiting for us is the Holy Spirit who is with us. Who abides in us.
[34:57] Who sets us apart for himself. I'll never forget being at an altar call, you know, being a good southern boy. I went to about a thousand altar calls. But after turning to the Lord in repentance and faith, I went to, took some youth to an altar, or to a conference thing.
[35:19] And, you know, sitting there with the preaching. It was Saturday night. All the fields were going on, you know. Working that, working to a moment of decision.
[35:33] And I said, Lord, am I supposed to go down now again? And it's subjective.
[35:45] It was an experience. I felt like the Lord said, you're mine already. What I believe best interpretation of that event for me, what I immediately thought of was Romans 8, 16.
[35:59] The Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. Now, my walk's been a mess. But that reality, the Spirit is in me.
[36:13] Those in the flesh cannot please God. But if Christ is in you, well, the body is dead because of sin. The Spirit is life. You're alive.
[36:24] All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. And that's what happened in that moment. It goes without saying, you know, perhaps, but I'm going to say it. The Holy Spirit is a person. He's not described here like a power, but like a person.
[36:39] Just like Jesus said, I will send another helper. One who's like me, who will be with you forever. The Holy Spirit is that helper. That's what Paul was saying.
[36:51] He will be with us forever, to the end of the age, wherever we go. Until we acquire the full and total access into his presence. He is not only the guarantee, is what we're learning in this passage.
[37:02] He is the foretaste. He is the foretaste of inheritance that awaits for us. Do you want to know what the total inheritance is like?
[37:14] Do you want to know what heaven is like? It's not about angels or harps or mansions or streets of gold. It's not mainly about no death or disease, no suffering, pain, or sin.
[37:24] It's about the overwhelming, self-forgetting, soul-satisfying joy of living in the presence of God. That's what it's like. And so the Holy Spirit is a down payment, is a guarantee, is a foretaste of the life that awaits.
[37:40] When we will need no sun or moon or star, because the Lord will be our light and we'll be in his presence. And we'll see him, we won't be crushed because he took away all of our sins in Jesus.
[37:53] It reminds us that the greatest gift that God gives is not his gifts as marvelous as so many of them are. All these spiritual blessings are. The greatest gift is of himself.
[38:07] And all this to the praise of his glory. All of it. What a stunning array of unthinkable blessings.
[38:19] You are blessed. You are chosen. You are adopted. You are redeemed. You are forgiven. You are rescued to be his possession.
[38:30] You are sealed. You are guaranteed with a deposit. I mean, sometimes I think in this identity language we're always saying, I am blessed. I am redeemed. And that's a wonderful thing. But what's a more wonderful thing is God declaring it over you.
[38:42] You are blessed. You are redeemed. You are chosen. Even you. You are loved. You are adopted. You are welcomed into his family.
[38:52] What a stunning scope we began in this blessing and eternity path. All that God has done for us began before the foundation of the world. All that God has done for us never began because it was conceived in the mind of God.
[39:07] And yet all that God has done for us will continue into an eternity that will never end. The scope could not be more massive from eternity to eternity for the praise of his glory.
[39:21] That's the awesome purpose that runs through this passage. To the praise of his glory. To the praise of his glory. To the praise of his glory. So often we look through the wrong end of the telescope.
[39:34] We move from man to God. But these verses are about the unthinkable truth that the eternal God moves to save man. So that all the honor and all the glory might forever return to God who saved hell deserving sinners for the praise of his glory.
[39:54] Amen. Amen. But why is it for the praise? Why is it for the praise of his glory?
[40:05] Because God is not just about glory. God is not just after his glory. He's after your joy. The God who made all of this has joy in his heart.
[40:19] He's after your delight. All that God has done for hell deserving sinners is so that you might praise him with great, overflowing, inexpressible joy from now and forever.
[40:32] That's what God's doing in Jesus Christ. Amen. May God help us. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[40:42] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. I remember years ago my dad came to town and was reading his Bible it's a gift to your son to know that you still read the Bible he was down reading his Bible I didn't see him but a little note card dropped out and was sitting on the living room floor to daily questions I still have a picture of it I still have the note card daily questions it was like something like remember how can I take up my cross today how can I serve others today and then he said the last thing was just underlined underlined today I must remember who I am but I remember whose I am that's what Paul wants for you you are chosen you're adopted you're redeemed most stunning you're God's possession you belong to him saved by him to belong to him forever forever and ever let us pray
[42:15] Father we thank you for the joy sitting under these verses thank you for these unspeakable truths that over us in Jesus Christ you completely changed the way we think about ourselves Lord I pray that you would do that work in us cause us to rest in these unthinkable truths more and more and more we cry out to you Lord we're people who belong to you and we want to live in the good of all that that means so help us Lord we pray in Jesus name you've been listening to a message given by Walt Alexander lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee for more information about Trinity Grace please visit us at TrinityGraceAthens.com Trinity Grace