WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.919 Many of you, no doubt, have heard of the famous pastor, Martin Lloyd-Jones, the famous pastor 00:00:07.919 --> 00:00:14.240 ! of Westminster Chapel in London. He led a famous revival of British evangelicalism in the 19th 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:20.160 ! century. He was a major figure, and you probably know him most of all for his very long and lengthy 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:28.000 sermon series, which are known to go line by line by line through a book of the Bible and attempt to be 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:34.480 comprehensive and almost exhaustive. And his most famous sermon series is on the book of Romans. 00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:42.640 And over the course of 12 years, he preached through the book of Romans. He preached 372 sermons. 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:49.280 You can go buy them today. They're in 14 volumes. And the most interesting thing is that he actually 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:54.240 died before he finished the book of Romans. He only made it halfway through the 14th chapter. 00:00:54.240 --> 00:01:00.320 But the second most famous sermon series that he went through is the book of Ephesians. And over the 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:10.799 course of verses 3 to 14, he had 24 sermons trying to extract everything out of this passage that I 00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:17.599 just read. Now normally, if I can confess this to you, I think Martin Lloyd-Jones is good, but he's a 00:01:17.599 --> 00:01:23.199 little long-winded. And you know, so going through that many sermons, you kind of wonder, when are we 00:01:23.199 --> 00:01:29.839 going to keep moving on? But 24 sermons seems completely reasonable to me for a passage like 00:01:29.839 --> 00:01:38.239 this. You can have 24 sermons over a deep passage like this. This is a passage that we are called to 00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:44.879 Saber because it is one of the most glorious passages in all of Scripture. You know, if you 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:50.239 are looking for a passage to memorize, particularly as a new Christian, there are a few passages that 00:01:50.239 --> 00:01:56.799 I would recommend more readily and heartily than this one. This is a passage that you can spend every 00:01:56.799 --> 00:02:04.000 single day for the rest of your life meditating on, repeating to yourself, and you will not come to 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:11.680 the bottom of it. And there are other passages like that in Scripture, but this one is unique. 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:18.400 You know, Paul here, he's writing to the church in Ephesus and he can hardly finish greeting them in the 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:25.599 first two verses before he launches head first into a prayer of praise. And once he keeps going, 00:02:25.599 --> 00:02:33.520 he just keeps going and going and going and he doesn't come up for air. Really, this entire first 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:45.040 chapter is really just one long prayer. And verses 3 to 14 are actually just one sentence in the Greek. 00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:52.640 There's 202 words in these verses that I just read, all one sentence, and it's a traditional torture text 00:02:52.640 --> 00:02:58.480 that you hand to seminary students trying to see when they come to an end and when they realize that it's 00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:06.879 all just one sentence. This is the longest sentence in the entire New Testament. And Paul just keeps going 00:03:06.879 --> 00:03:13.120 and going and going in praise of God. And what you need to see there is that Paul considers an absolute 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:20.319 necessity to begin by praising God before coming to the some of the weightiest doctrines in Scripture, 00:03:20.319 --> 00:03:23.919 like salvation by grace alone through faith alone in chapter 2. 00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:31.599 Now, Paul does not believe that deep theology is separable from high praise. Those two things, 00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:37.679 they go together. And as soon as you begin to try to separate those two, you'll find that your 00:03:37.679 --> 00:03:44.399 theology becomes weaker and weaker. You have less and less interest in it. And you find that your praise, 00:03:45.279 --> 00:03:53.039 also, you begin to lose things to sing about. And you begin to not desire to come to God in praise. 00:03:53.039 --> 00:04:03.919 We need praise and theology together. And this passage is a master class in what doxology looks like. And he's 00:04:03.919 --> 00:04:13.199 very intentionally teaching us about what it means to be a Christian. This passage is one long list of the 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:19.519 blessings that we have in Jesus Christ. And he lays out blessing after blessing after blessing. And every 00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:25.759 single one you can take off the shelf. And you can hold on to it, no matter what circumstances you're in. 00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:32.240 No matter whether things are going great for you or things are going horribly. These are blessings, 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:44.160 which you can always use and hold on to. This passage is an opportunity for us to clothe our love of God with 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:52.480 deeper and deeper reasons for that love. And I want to cover this entire passage in detail, but we simply 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:57.600 don't have the time. So, like last week we only covered two verses. This week we're only going to cover two 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:04.240 verses. We're only going to cover verses three and four. And I want to cover it in just three points with 00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:12.480 you today. The assurance of blessing, the blessing of election, and the purpose of election. And I want to 00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:21.760 start here with that first point, the assurance of blessing. Paul here in verse three is declaring to the 00:05:21.759 --> 00:05:29.120 Ephesian church that they are blessed. That this is something that they can know for certain. They can 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:37.120 have assurance about it. They have blessings in Jesus Christ. And the first thing I want you to see 00:05:37.759 --> 00:05:45.439 is that it is the Trinity itself that blesses us. You know, this is this entire passage that I just read. 00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:51.519 There's a nice Trinitarian order, but you can just go through with a knife. Verses four to six talk about 00:05:51.519 --> 00:05:57.199 the blessings we have from the Father. Verses seven to twelve talk about the blessings of the Son. And 00:05:57.199 --> 00:06:03.680 verses thirteen and fourteen talk about the blessings of the Holy Spirit. Paul here is explaining how our 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:09.439 redemption is planned by God the Father, how it is accomplished by Jesus Christ, and how it is applied 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:18.240 to us by the Holy Spirit. It's all the Trinity working together to redeem us and bless us. And you can see 00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:26.800 that Trinitarian structure in miniature in verse three. God the Father has blessed us in Christ Jesus 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:35.519 with spiritual blessings, as it says here. And that term, spiritual blessings, that is not just spiritual 00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:42.960 with a small s. It's really spiritual with a capital s. These are blessings that are not just simply not 00:06:42.959 --> 00:06:51.599 physical or more than physical. These are blessings that come from the Spirit himself. Really all of these 00:06:51.599 --> 00:07:01.120 blessings have to do with the Spirit. And what you need to see is that the Trinity itself has made it a point 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:10.639 to bless you as a Christian. And that should bring you tremendous comfort because it gives you absolute 00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:16.399 assurance. When you see the Father work, you know the Son is working, you know the Spirit is working, 00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:24.399 and where the Son is there also are the Father and the Spirit. The Trinity works together as one God, 00:07:24.399 --> 00:07:33.039 not simply three persons separately, but as one God. And they are working together to bless us in Jesus 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:41.120 Christ. If you have one of these blessings, you have every single one of these blessings. You cannot separate them out. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:50.560 This is one work by one God in three persons, and we have been blessed by our triune God. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:08:00.560 And the Trinity has blessed us particularly in Christ. Christ is absolutely central in this passage. 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:08.560 In various ways, you are described as in Christ, under Christ, through Christ, almost a dozen times in this passage. 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:18.319 It's a drumbeat constantly. The focus is constantly back upon Christ. All of these blessings are particularly 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:24.399 accomplished by Christ himself. And yes, the Father and the Spirit, they're integral to our salvation. 00:08:24.399 --> 00:08:30.959 It's not a church, but it is our union with Christ that particularly brings us these blessings. 00:08:32.959 --> 00:08:39.360 You know, if you want a phrase to help you read the Bible better, the phrase, in Christ, is a really good one. 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:45.840 Because once you start noticing that phrase, you will see it everywhere. On average, in Paul's letters, 00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:53.039 he uses it once per chapter. And it's one of the core things that he wants to teach you. You are in Jesus Christ. 00:08:53.039 --> 00:09:04.559 And therefore, what he has becomes yours, even as your sin becomes his. And that means that you have been blessed 00:09:04.559 --> 00:09:15.039 with every blessing that is possible. Every blessing that the Son has is ours because we are in him. 00:09:15.039 --> 00:09:22.480 We are able to enjoy every blessing that the Son of God has. And if you ever look around and you think, 00:09:22.480 --> 00:09:26.240 well, maybe the angels, maybe they have some blessing that we don't have. 00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:31.679 But you just ask yourself, has God the Father held back anything from his Son? 00:09:32.719 --> 00:09:36.719 The answer is no. And we are in Jesus Christ. 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:44.399 We are able to say that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. And you need to understand 00:09:44.399 --> 00:09:52.080 the magnitude of that statement. There is no other blessing that you can covet spiritually in anyone else. 00:09:53.279 --> 00:10:00.080 You have them all in Jesus Christ. And Christian, you have no reason to not be encouraged. 00:10:00.080 --> 00:10:08.960 I don't mean that there's no reason not to weep. That there's no reason not to be sad. Our Savior was a 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:19.280 man of sorrows. He knew what it meant to weep. But in the Gospel, we have all the blessings. We have every 00:10:19.280 --> 00:10:27.360 means of comfort that God can give us. And we are able to look to the Gospel as a great balm for no matter what 00:10:27.360 --> 00:10:35.519 difficulties we may face. There is always a remedy in Jesus Christ, no matter what comes to us. 00:10:36.800 --> 00:10:44.000 All three persons of the Trinity have made it their goal to redeem you and bless you in Jesus Christ. 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:52.399 And Paul here, he is unfurling our inheritance, showing what is ours because we are in Jesus Christ, 00:10:52.399 --> 00:10:58.079 what Jesus Christ's death has brought us and what we have inherited in him. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:06.480 John Calvin, he has this great line on this passage. He says that if you understand that we, 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:11.519 if you work these truths into your heart, you will never look anywhere else for any new doctrine. 00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:17.039 You will be completely satisfied by what you have in Jesus Christ because you will know that there is 00:11:17.039 --> 00:11:23.679 nothing else anywhere else. You will have tasted of true bread and living water. You will have found 00:11:23.679 --> 00:11:30.480 comfort for your soul for any situation. And it is all in Jesus. 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:40.000 But secondly, Paul here covers this blessing of election. And he goes into this, 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:46.960 in particularly in the first half of verse 4. Paul begins to describe why we are blessed. 00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:54.480 And he says, the first blessing we possess is election. That is the first thing that he lays out 00:11:54.480 --> 00:12:00.480 for us, the people of God. And by that he means that those who are Christians are literally chosen. 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:06.799 They're picked out to be the people of God. They are predestined to believe in Christ by God himself. 00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:14.399 God chose Christians before they chose him. That is what we mean by election. And this is particularly 00:12:14.399 --> 00:12:21.120 the work of the Father. And we need to see that because we need to have a loving view of our Heavenly 00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:29.199 Father. There's a view that goes around and no one actually teaches it. But it happens everywhere. It 00:12:29.199 --> 00:12:36.319 happens even in the strongest of churches. This belief often is around that Jesus is really the one who 00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:44.240 convinces the Father to love us on the cross. That Jesus is the one who takes his Father and keeps him 00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:50.560 from being an angry Father and then convinces him to love us. But that's the furthest thing from the truth. 00:12:52.160 --> 00:12:58.000 First of all, on the cross, Jesus is not just saving you from the Father's wrath. He's also saving you 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:04.160 from his wrath and the Spirit's wrath. It's the wrath of the triune God that he is protecting you from on the cross. 00:13:04.159 --> 00:13:12.159 But secondly, it is also God the Father who sent his Son into the world to die for sinners. The Father 00:13:12.159 --> 00:13:19.360 understood what was happening at the cross. He initiated it. He sent his Son. This was a plan 00:13:20.159 --> 00:13:30.559 from the very beginning. This is a blessing that we were able to say that salvation is planned by God the 00:13:30.559 --> 00:13:36.319 Father, that it has been predestined, that he has predestined his people. And that might seem a little 00:13:36.319 --> 00:13:42.959 strange to talk about election and predestination as a blessing. That language is not always used. 00:13:43.839 --> 00:13:49.199 And sometimes we can think of election and predestination as really these cold hard doctrines. 00:13:49.199 --> 00:13:54.159 These are brainy doctrines for brainy people, perhaps particularly for Presbyterians. 00:13:54.159 --> 00:14:02.480 But this is not a doctrine for great, mighty, and brainy Christians or cold Christians for the 00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:07.519 pros and chosen. This is a doctrine that Paul begins his letter with because he understands that 00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:13.839 this is for every Christian. This is a doctrine that all Christians are supposed to hold on to. 00:14:13.839 --> 00:14:19.199 This doctrine is supposed to be part of the very foundation of what it means to be a Christian, 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:26.480 part of your self-understanding. This is a blessing because it vividly displays for us 00:14:27.120 --> 00:14:33.920 the grace of God in a way almost nothing else does as clearly. If you would, I want you to turn in your 00:14:33.920 --> 00:14:39.360 Bibles to Deuteronomy 7. You don't have to, but you can. Deuteronomy chapter 7, and we'll just 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:46.720 briefly read verses 6 to 8. You know, here in Deuteronomy chapter 7, Moses is giving the final pep talk 00:14:46.720 --> 00:14:52.720 before he leads Israel into the Promised Land, and he is going through the entire history of Israel, 00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:56.000 explaining everything that needs to happen, everything that has happened up to this point. 00:14:56.800 --> 00:15:03.680 And he says there in chapter 7, verse 6 to 8, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. 00:15:03.680 --> 00:15:10.800 The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who 00:15:10.799 --> 00:15:16.799 are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people, 00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:22.479 but the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it is 00:15:22.479 --> 00:15:28.959 because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought 00:15:28.959 --> 00:15:37.199 you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:48.560 Moses' point in those verses is the exact same point as Paul's. Nothing in you deserves God's grace and 00:15:48.560 --> 00:15:58.400 favor, and yet God chose you. Nothing in you, nothing at all, nothing in this passage gives us the slightest 00:15:58.400 --> 00:16:05.280 hint that this blessing is conditioned upon you or your behavior whatsoever. I want you to notice this 00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:11.919 occurs before the creation of the world, before the foundation of the world. Before you've done 00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:18.639 anything to be worthy of this blessing at all, before you've done anything at all, God chose you. 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:25.759 And if you were to say, well, what if God looked down the corridors of time? And sometimes people use 00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:30.959 that language. God looked down the corridors of time and then he picked out Christians based on their 00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:35.680 behavior. And that's a really bad way of thinking about it. But if we were to think about it that 00:16:35.680 --> 00:16:40.879 way, what would God see if you were to look down those corridors of time? He would see what Paul, 00:16:40.879 --> 00:16:50.000 what Calvin calls just materials for destruction. He'd see rebels rebelling against him. He would not see 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:59.919 people eager to follow him. He would see sinners in need of a savior. Sinners who are in need of his son to 00:16:59.919 --> 00:17:06.640 die upon the cross for them. Sinners that need the spirit to work inside them, to work faith in them, 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:14.079 to bring them from death to life. That's what he would see. And instead of him choosing, 00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:22.799 choosing us because of anything in us, this passage says that we are chosen in him, meaning in Christ, not 00:17:22.799 --> 00:17:35.519 ourselves. Christ is the context of our election, not us. It's not about us. It's about Jesus. And there's a very 00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:42.000 reasonable question that you can ask at this point, a perfectly reasonable question. You can hear that and you 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:52.000 could think, well, why? Why is it that God loves me to elect me? That is a perfectly reasonable question to ask. 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:58.720 That is a perfectly natural question to ask. But when you look at scripture and when you come with that 00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:05.519 question, what is the answer that you receive? You receive the answer, he loves you because he loves you. 00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:13.920 And is that difficult to understand? Absolutely. But what we are running into is the mysteries of God's 00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:21.119 grace. Something that we cannot fathom. Something that we are called to see and only fall down in worship 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:30.480 and praise of. We are called to fall down in worship before the throne of grace, wondering why is it that we 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:40.960 we are here? We should not be here. And yet God has called us to himself and worked in us and called us 00:18:40.960 --> 00:18:49.200 to worship him as his adopted children. You know, the second that you start looking inside yourself and 00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:56.240 you start trying to find a reason why God loves you and you say, that's the reason God elected me, 00:18:56.240 --> 00:19:05.279 that is the second that you turn this blessing into a reward and into an expectation. Where you turn grace 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:16.079 upon its head. This is grace in the most vivid way imaginable. It is grace simply for grace's sake. 00:19:16.079 --> 00:19:25.039 Something that you cannot find an explanation for inside yourself. Only inside God. Only inside him and his glory 00:19:25.039 --> 00:19:33.039 and love. The last reason Paul is telling us about election is for us to become prideful. For us to 00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:39.440 become self-confident in who we are. That we have something inside us that is worthy of God's love. 00:19:41.359 --> 00:19:48.159 Paul here is telling us about election for a very particular purpose. He is telling us about election 00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:55.440 because he believes it is practical. It is a practical thing for us. Our election is supposed 00:19:55.440 --> 00:20:02.960 to lead somewhere. It is supposed to lead to a holy and blameless life at the end of verse 4. 00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:09.200 You know, of course, everything we have from God ultimately leads to the glory of God. 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:25.039 God has elected us in order that we may live a holy and blameless life before him. 00:20:27.039 --> 00:20:33.120 This is something that people can be troubled by. Because the concern about predestination and election 00:20:33.119 --> 00:20:40.399 can be that it actually undercuts your Christian life. You lose motivation. You know, part of that is 00:20:40.399 --> 00:20:46.799 because you wonder, well, why share the gospel with anyone? And if you want an answer to that question, 00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:51.679 I recommend you go see J.I. Packer's little book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. It is one of 00:20:51.679 --> 00:20:58.159 the best succinct works on that subject that you can ever find. And really, when you share the gospel, 00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:06.000 what you need to know is that people are lost and dead. And your goal in evangelism is not to make 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:12.240 them alive and of your own power. It is simply to present the gospel, to present Jesus Christ and 00:21:12.240 --> 00:21:20.080 let the Spirit do the work. Because only the Spirit can save them, not you. And once you realize the 00:21:20.080 --> 00:21:25.279 magnitude of the condition of sinners around you, you will realize that God is the only solution and has 00:21:25.279 --> 00:21:32.480 been the only solution. And that frees you up from all of your anxiety to share the gospel. Your goal is just to 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:40.559 present Jesus and let God do the rest. That's part of it. But the second reason that people often think that 00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:48.559 election undercuts the Christian in life is because, well, why do anything? What, if you're truly elected by God, 00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:55.119 why actually live for Jesus or anything like that? But when you look at these verses, you see that that is 00:21:55.119 --> 00:22:04.240 completely opposite of the way Paul thinks. Paul thinks that election powers holy and fruitful living, 00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:10.879 that holy and faithful living is the fruit of our election. And if we don't live holy and blameless 00:22:10.879 --> 00:22:17.759 lives, then we undercut the entire purpose of this blessing. Indeed, it's doubtful whether we possess 00:22:17.759 --> 00:22:23.920 any of these blessings at all, because we are called to just be in Jesus Christ and to live the way 00:22:25.039 --> 00:22:36.559 of being in Jesus. We are called to be holy and blameless before God in love. I want you to look at 00:22:36.559 --> 00:22:44.160 the very tail end of verse 4. There's a period in most of your translations. Holy and blameless in his sight, 00:22:44.160 --> 00:22:51.279 period, in love. That's the way most of these translations go. And I like the ESV, I like the NIV, 00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:58.320 but the KJV, I think, has it a little bit better because the KJV moves the period and says holy and 00:22:58.320 --> 00:23:05.360 blameless in love, period. The reason that all these translations disagree is very simple. The comma 00:23:05.359 --> 00:23:11.679 wasn't invented yet. And when you have 202 words without commas, things get a little ambiguous. 00:23:12.799 --> 00:23:19.119 And what we have here are two perfectly good and reasonable ways to read this passage. You can either 00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:24.879 say that we should be holy and blameless before him in love or in love he predestined us for adoption 00:23:24.879 --> 00:23:30.799 to himself. Both are perfectly reasonable. And I suspect that we're actually being teased here, 00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:38.000 that Paul is intentionally putting forward a little ambiguity because both should be seen. 00:23:39.919 --> 00:23:46.639 But I prefer to put it, put the periods of its holy and blameless in love because our Christian 00:23:46.639 --> 00:23:51.680 living in all of its holiness, in all of its blamelessness is supposed to be characterized 00:23:51.680 --> 00:24:00.000 chiefly by love as we live our lives before God. Being holy before God means that we are devoted to him 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:05.839 and him alone, that he is our greatest love, that he is the one that we desire above all else. 00:24:05.839 --> 00:24:16.079 And that is best described as love. Love is supposed to characterize every single aspect of you. It is 00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:23.200 supposed to characterize every single action. It is supposed to be the most foundational part about you. 00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:33.200 You know, when I think about recipes, I think that there's more to a recipe than essentially the list 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:38.799 of ingredients. You can have a list of ingredients and you can make the recipe, but I think there's more 00:24:38.799 --> 00:24:45.039 to it than that. You know, because the greatest predictor of whether I like a meal or not is really 00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:51.440 whether my mother or Anna made it. Okay, that's actually legitimately the biggest predictor of 00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:57.680 whether I like a meal. And that's because there's something attractive about home cooking. It's made 00:24:57.680 --> 00:25:07.359 in love. Love, it characterizes how the dish is made. And that's supposed to be how we are made. 00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:14.639 God elected us in love before the foundation of the world. And what that means is before you were knit 00:25:14.639 --> 00:25:20.639 together in your mother's womb, before a single atom was created that would eventually make up your body, 00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:28.799 God elected you in love. And it is there at the very beginning. And that you are called as a Christian 00:25:28.799 --> 00:25:32.799 to show forth that love all around you in everything that you do. 00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:38.480 God, is it any wonder that when people see Christians, they should think love? 00:25:40.159 --> 00:25:48.000 We have been shown love by God before the foundation of the world. How can it not pour out 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:54.319 when we bear with each other in our burdens? How can it not pour out with the way we treat our spouses, 00:25:55.279 --> 00:26:01.119 with the way we treat our children, with the way we treat those who wrong us or our neighbors? 00:26:01.119 --> 00:26:10.000 Our desire is to show forth the love of God, which has been shown to us. We love God not because we 00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:17.759 first loved him, but because he first loved us. And we are called to show forth that love in everything 00:26:17.759 --> 00:26:25.839 we do. And to make others wonder, what is that love? Where does it come from? How can I have that love? 00:26:25.839 --> 00:26:35.119 And the answer is simply to turn to Jesus Christ, to believe on him and to trust in him. And then you 00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:43.599 will truly understand the wonders that are in Jesus Christ. You know, Christian, our election is done 00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:48.959 and accomplished so that we may have assurance in it. But we are called to act like we are elected. 00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:57.640 And Paul wants us to be praising God, but in the midst of that praise, we understand what Paul says in Ephesians 4.1. 00:26:58.420 --> 00:27:06.640 That we are to act in a way that is worthy of our calling. And Christian, there is no higher calling in all the world 00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:10.960 than to be called by a loving Lord from all eternity. 00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:21.519 That is the greatest and most powerful call imaginable. And it should simply fill us with a desire to love our Savior 00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:34.559 more and more each and every day. You know, love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. 00:27:34.559 --> 00:27:41.759 Let us pray. Our most gracious and loving Heavenly Father, Lord, we are thankful for your word. 00:27:42.159 --> 00:27:45.720 And we are thankful for the blessings that we have in Jesus Christ. 00:27:46.619 --> 00:27:53.859 We pray that we would meditate upon them and that we would just be in simple awe of the love that you have displayed to us. 00:27:54.559 --> 00:28:02.579 Love that defies any explanation. Love that simply points us deeper and deeper into your love. 00:28:02.579 --> 00:28:09.519 We pray, O Lord, that we would truly worship you well today because of that love. 00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:15.740 That we would desire to show forth that love all around us and that it would simply pour out of us. 00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:24.220 And that we would seek to be in Jesus even as he is in us and as he is ministering to us. 00:28:24.879 --> 00:28:29.059 We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.