The Spiritual Blessing of God's Choice

Big Idea: Rejoice in God’s choosing and adopting by responding in worship.

1. Predestination (God’s choice)
2. Privilege (God’s children)

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  Well, good morning, Faith Bible Church. It's a joy to be a part of this church family. It really is. I'm super thankful for that. My name is Josh Gilchrist. I'm one of the pastors here. Joshua actually means the Lord is salvation, and Gilchrist is a Scottish word that means how did I get chosen to teach on predestination today. It's actually not what it means at all. It means servant of Christ, and I think I'm here because God planned it. So we're into our third message in the book of Ephesians, talking about life in Christ together. A couple weeks ago, Dan gave an overview of the entire book, and our elders and their wonderful reading voices read the entire epistle the way it would have first been delivered back in original times. Last week, Dan gave an overview of Ephesians one three through 14, which I like to call Paul's gushing run-on sentence. He is just overwhelmed with how great God's grace is, and the spiritual blessings, and he's just overflowing with praise that he just keeps going and going. And so Dan gave us an overview and focused in on verse three. I get the privilege of talking about one of those spiritual blessings today, the blessing of God's sovereign choosing of his children. Go ahead and open your Bibles to Ephesians one, if you would, and please stand with me for the reading of scripture. I'll be focusing in on verses four through six today, but we're going to read verse three as part of it, so Ephesians chapter one verses three through six. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the beloved. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me, please. Heavenly Father, you are blessed. You're worthy of our adoration and praise at all times and in all places. We're grateful that you have blessed us with every spiritual blessing because of our union with your Son, Jesus Christ. We praise you and acknowledge that you are above us and beyond us you reign in heaven from where you made your eternal decrees and set about your perfect purposes. In those decrees and purposes, Lord, you've been gracious to include your creatures. You've always been about making a people for yourself. Father, we praise you, Jesus, for being our mediator between us and God, and through your mediation, we, as your children, get to receive the blessings of the Father. The greatest blessing is being in union with you, an inseparable connection that nothing can break or separate us from. You are the beloved Son, in whom the Father is pleased, and because of you, the Father, is pleased to call us sons and daughters. Holy Spirit, we thank you for giving us eyes to see the Son and to believe in Him. We thank you that you've given us your inspired word. We pray that you would convict our hearts as we look at it this morning and show us wonderful things in this passage. Lord, we thank you for the training that takes place here at Faith Bible Church, the Master Seminary, and aspiring men. Lord, and we have people all over the place today. We have Nathan up in Republic, we have Keith Stolzfus and Ian Washington, Brian Elkire, and Plummer, and Ray Hannah out in Reardon, Lord, we just pray that you would strengthen those men as they bring the word to those churches this morning, Lord, that you would be glorified, and I pray that you would be with me as I speak today. Lord, help me to glorify you and honor you, and may we seek to take the truths in this passage and apply it to our hearts in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Please be seated now. If you grew up going to school and having recess, or you were in a PE class, you've probably experienced the highs and lows of picking teams, usually two capped.
  
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  Ians are selected, and they go one by one, selecting people from the overall pool of people, and generally they select the best players first. And what happens is, teams start getting selected. It's no longer the captain picking; it's like mob rule, almost takes place, especially with younger kids. The new picks come and try to influence the decision of who should be picked next. Pick him, pick him. No, not him, not her. Pick him, pick her. And as the pool diminishes, those who are remaining start to feel a little embarrassed. And I hope I'm not picked last. I hope there's not an odd number of people, so I don't get a play at all. In our passage today, we're going to see how God chose those who would belong to Him in eternity past. He picked all of them. He was not influenced by anything that those people had to offer. He wasn't influenced by anything that anyone had to say about those, those people. In fact, everyone that he chose had absolutely nothing to offer him, but he chose them so that he could make them into people who would be of service to him. In our world, we try to find our identity and worth in a lot of things that don't really do the trick. Maybe you think that your identity is in your grade point average. What college you're going to go to, and it's great to go to college. And congratulations to all of you seniors, and where you're going there, or what college you went to, you find your identity in that, or what career you end up in. Maybe you find your worth in what you think people think about you, how much they like you, how much they value, how much people want to be around you and make you feel important. Maybe it's in your performance, how well you do at things, how well you do with your spiritual disciplines, how well you do at balancing your budget, making money, how you steward your resources, raise your kids and your family. The problem with all those things, and these are not necessarily bad things, but when we find our identity and place the utmost importance in those things, everything has to be going well for us to feel happy and at peace, and even when those things are going well, we can be overcome with worry and anxiety. The what ifs. What if this falls apart? What if people stop liking me? What if I lose my job? What if I don't do well in this college program? The other problem can be that people find success and consistency in those things, and they become puffed up and arrogant, rather than thanking God. It's like it's all about what I've done. Maybe today you're sitting here, and your sense of identity and worth has been been crushed or struggling. Perhaps someone who should be an encouragement to you has said some harsh words about how they feel that you are not cut out for something, they don't think that you're good enough to do something, you're not college material. This job is not a job that you could do well, you're not a dynamic leader. Maybe you recently got turned down for a job or lost a job, were passed over for a promotion, and you feel rejected and discouraged. Maybe a relationship that you're in has been taken away or is going through really intense conflict. You struggle because of those things with feelings of worthlessness, failure, loneliness, and discouragement. I want you to know that this passage tells us that God offers his children heavenly and spiritual blessings far beyond all comparison to anything that those other things can offer. Our big idea today is rejoice in God's choosing and adopting by responding in worship, rejoice in God's choosing and adopting by responding in worship. God has chosen his people, people whom he will get to the finish line, people whom he predetermined to adopt as family. This passage should cause our hearts to soar in gratitude and thankfulness and awe, but also bring us down to a proper level of humility, as we remember that it's only because of God. We're going to look at two parts of the blessing of God's choice.
  
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  We're going to look at predestination, the actual predetermined choosing that God does, and then second, we'll look at the privilege of being His children. So, let's start with part one of the blessing that should cause us to rejoice: predestination, or God's choosing. We're focusing on the first blessing here of God's sovereign choosing and predestination. Him in verses four through six, but verse three bears repeating again. So read that for us. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. We have everything that we need in Christ. There's no deficiency in the spiritual gifts that he gives, and we have that through our inseparable union with him. We're joined to him, and nothing can separate us from that. And so, as we come to verse four, it begins with the word, even as we have every blessing in him, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to preface everything that I'm about to say to you about predestination and election, we need to remember that God is in the heavens and He does whatever He pleases. According to Psalm 115 verse three, He declares the end from the beginning, He ordains and oversees every minute of every day, according to Isaiah 46 nine through 10, and according to Isaiah 55 eight through nine, his ways and his thoughts are far above ours, they transcend our ability to do things and think things, we are nothing like him, and so as we come to this topic, we should let God be God. This doesn't mean that we can't dig in and seek to understand challenging doctrines like election, but we should remember that God is ultimately incomprehensible to us, for any of us to expect him to only work in a way and carry out his purposes in a way that we can fully wrap our minds around would be to deny him the right to be God, who's in the heavens, who works all things after the counsel of his will. So let's look at that first spiritual blessing, looking at verse four, even as He chose us, His children, in Him, Jesus Christ, before the foundation of the world, God made a pick or selection, He chose, and He did it according to His own will and freedom, and this was not some emotionless, indifferent, calloused choice. It was one in which he was personally interested and deeply vested. I want you to look at verse four and notice that it says he chose us. God is the subject, and we are the object of the choosing. Paul doesn't say that God let us choose him. No, God chose us. He chose his children in Christ, in him, brothers and sisters. If you are one who has put your faith in Jesus Christ, you are inseparably connected to him in Ephesians, you'll see in him, in Christ, in the beloved, over and over again, reminding us of that beautiful reality that if you have placed your faith in Christ, you are united in him, your life is hidden in him, your life is Christ, God chose his people in Christ, his beloved son, with whom he's pleased. This was all part of God's eternal plan. And it was done before the foundation of the world, before there was a world that any of us could inhabit or do anything on. He chose, he, he acted first. He was the first actor in salvation, and he did that for a purpose. He chose people not just so they could get into heaven, but that they could be holy and blameless before him. To be holy means sacred, set apart, dedicated to the Lord's service, living in purity and reverence. When we consider that description. We know that we all fall short in that to be blameless is to be free from the guilt of not following God's commands and loss. None of us can claim to have done that perfectly, but God chose those who would, who should be holy and blameless. It doesn't say that God chose people because they were holy and blameless. He chose them for the purpose of making them that way. God has to act first. If holiness and blamelessness is going to be a possibility for any of us, He has to.
  
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  We don't choose that on our own. God also didn't look ahead and see who would be holy and blameless, or who would choose them, and be like, okay, I think I like that person. Now, we maybe not all of us, but there's a lot of them, so there must be a market for it, and some of us. Most like them, the movies, the Disney movies about the underdog teams that have, like, no skill at the beginning. They're terrible, they're losers. They shoot the basket at the wrong hoop. They strike out at kickball. That happened to me once, actually. Didn't make me get picked last every time. I was the cow, the Cal Riley of kickball was either grand slam or strike out, anyway. But picture a movie about a guy who just strikes out at kickball at the beginning, he's devastated, he's humiliated, and all the other people, they can't catch the ball, and there's a coach who takes those people and makes winners out of them. They, they actually like overcome their, their bitter rival, the people with all the skill, they succeed. Now, when God chose, there wasn't a mix of the good team and the losers. The whole pool, the entire pool that he had to select from, was all losers. He had nothing to choose from but scrubs, people with no school, no skill, people that he had to do the work to make them something. There were no tryouts where people could make a good impression and get selected by the coach. We needed him to act first. If we want to really consider what God saw when he looked ahead, when it comes to us. When God looked ahead, he saw a graveyard. He saw a valley of dry bones. He saw people dead in their sins, people who had nothing to offer him except their slavery to sin and their debt that they owed, but God, in His grace, sent His son to shed His blood, so that redemption would be possible. Brian is going to unpack that verse for us next week. We're chosen in Christ only because of the holiness and blamelessness of Jesus, that's why he's pleased to choose anyone. When a person trusts in Christ, in what we would consider real time, and it is real time to us, we need to remember that God is not confined to time and space as we are, but when we trust in Christ because he moved in us first we are justified, we're declared not guilty, not only not guilty, but righteous, holy, and blameless is Christ's perfect life, is credited to our account, and then the Holy Spirit works in our heart and helps us to pursue sanctification when we go from like I just got selected and I'm a scrub to one day I want to be like God, I want to be holy and blameless. That's the process of sanctification, and it's progressive and it takes time, and God works in us, enabling us to pursue Him in that, and then that leads us to the finish line of glorification, the hope John read First John three one through three earlier, that one day we are going to see Jesus, and when we see him, we will see him as he is, and we will become like him, we'll be fully conformed to his image, and then that motivates us to be pure, and so there's positional holiness and blamelessness that is credited to us by the grace of God through Jesus, but there's the hope of one day being fully conformed to His image, no more getting frustrated behind the wheel or at Costco when it's busy, no more losing my patience, no more just harsh words. Why did I say that? Full, full conformity, holy holiness, and blamelessness before God. Maybe you're someone who is here today, and you're performance driven, and you feel low because of your many shortcomings and besetting sins. I just can't seem to get a handle on this. I want your heart to be encouraged by the fact that God's choice of you had nothing to do with your performance then and now, but He's gracious to choose you and save you, and to give you life, and the ability to pursue sanctification, and the hope of glorification.
  
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  One day, his choice was to make you his child, and to help you become holy and blameless. And he will see to it. He will see you to the finish line. He will get you there. He will keep his promises. He has begun the work, and he will indeed finish it. And one day, by his grace, you'll stand before him, holy and blameless. God's choice had nothing to do with us, and everything to do with the holy and blameless life and the sacrifice. Of his son Jesus. The next five words that we'll see at the end of verse four and into five is in love. He predestined us. That might look a little weird in your English Bible. You might notice at the very end of verse four it says in love there's a period, and then in love, and then in verse five it just continues the thought we need to remember that chapter and verse breaks are not inspired, they were added later, and the English translations that we have are actually good, and the punctuation here is actually helpful. That prepositional phrase "in love" it describes God and not us. If there was no period there in front of it, it would be like saying God predestined to make us holy and blameless before Him in our love for Him. I don't think that's what that's saying. I think this entire passage is about God's love and God lavishing His love and grace on people, and I believe that in love is describing how he predestined in love, God predestined his people. To predestine means to decide upon beforehand or to predetermine, and this word is a participle that, if you don't know what that is, that's okay, but it relates to the earlier verb chose. God chose by predestining, and his choice was not cold and indifferent, like I said earlier. It wasn't without emotion, it was done in love. The doctrine of election is comes out of this verse, and many other verses, you have to talk about it if you're teaching through it, and really, what it states is that God is sovereign over salvation. God is the one who moves first, and that if He didn't choose us, none of us would choose Him, none of us would ever respond to His calling if he hadn't worked in us first. Now it's important to clear up some potential confusion about the meaning of God's choice and his election. If you look at this passage, this is talking about the people whom God chose, not the people that he didn't, and a lot of people, their minds just go there. Well, what if I'm not chosen? What if that person is not chosen? The possibility of not being chosen seems kind of unfair. Maybe, like, why did God pick those people over there but not those people over there? That doesn't seem fair. If we understood how sinful we are and how short we follow the glory of God. We'd be blown away that God chooses anybody, and that He was determined to do it before the foundation of the world. The biggest problem in our minds shouldn't be why God doesn't save everyone, but why He saves anyone. He did it because he chose to, because he's God now. Scripture clearly states that God wants all people to come to repentance, and so you may ask, well, why don't they? Then it's because people love the darkness more than they love the light, because on their own they choose to go after the flesh and the world, worshiping themselves things in creation. They make their own choices, which lead to that, and he allows them to do that. He allows them to go their own way. Another objection to election and predestination is that it robs people of the right to choose and have a say in their decision to follow Christ. Now, there's mystery here, for sure, but with God, who transcends our ways and our thoughts, God can be fully sovereign while we remain fully responsible for our decisions. If you were to say, you know, I have this doctrine of election and predestination just locked down, you should listen to me. Someone says that to you, run from them. Okay, it's.. it's hard for us to wrap our minds around it, but not God.
  
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  One theologian said, a failure to understand something does not mean it's irrational, just means that it's hard to understand. But I want to say that those whom God chose will go through some changes, transformation that God brings about, and that will affect their choices, and their will. Our volition and will is involved in our coming to Christ. People repent, people believe, people turn from their sins, they confess His lordship, they, they place their hope in. Him brothers and sisters, if you've done that today, you can have confidence that God chose you. Paul here seems to be confident that he and these faithful saints in Ephesus had been chosen. There's so many good cross references we could look at, but we're going to just look at John 637 and let that be sufficient for today. Jesus said, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. The Father has appointed those who will come to him, but yet there is an invitation in those words that's implied. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. So, so come to him if you haven't made the choice to do that. Come to him in faith and repentance. That, that call to repent and believe is, is for all people. John Calvin said, no man is excluded from calling upon God. The gate of salvation is set open unto all men. Neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own belief. The gate of salvation is set open unto all people. There's no one who's excluded from God's choice who does not deserve that. Wrath is what we choose instead for ourselves as we reject God and His ways. Some people say that election and predestination means that evangelism is pointless. I would say that election and predestination should motivate us greatly to go out and share the gospel with other people, knowing that God has people who will believe, people who will respond, people who will turn to Him. And it's up for God. It's up to God to know who those chosen are. I wouldn't recommend that you go up to someone and say, "Hey, I'd like to share the Gospel with you, but I'm not 100% sure if you're on God's list. Don't do that. Give that gospel call, repent and believe. Say that Jesus died so that you could be forgiven of your sins. Believe in Him today. Time doesn't allow me to keep going and talk about all the different things that we could talk about related to the doctrine of election, but there are some takeaways for us. We need to remember that salvation is from the Lord, it's from Him, and through Him, and to Him. Election should also make us humble and thankful, not proud and argumentative. It's ultimately a sweet spiritual blessing to be chosen by God. He bestows it out of His grace. He determined to love His children. God's choice of predestination was personal, and that leads us to part two of the blessing of God's choice, which should cause us to rejoice and respond in worship. His choice and predestining have brought us to part two, the privilege, the privilege of being God's children. His choice was a predetermined one to lovingly make those he chose part of his family. There are, I think, six prepositional phrases around the clause. He predestined us. We're going to look at some of those. God predestined his chosen ones, and love. Love is the quality of warm regard, interest in esteem and affection. God didn't just coldly say, "I guess I'll choose these people. He did it lovingly and longingly. He longed to make his chosen ones his children, as he predestined them for adoption to himself. That was one of the sweetest things I got to experience at three different times, holding my kids for the first time. They're mine. I get to be their dad. I get to love them. Such an exciting thing. Adoption is God accepting those who put their faith in Jesus Christ as if they were his own sons and daughters. In chapter two, we're going to see how far away our sin takes us from anything resembling God's family. Yet God takes rebels and traitors, and He brings them into His family. He adopts them.
  
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  One commentator says, in the case of believers, God has taken the most distant foreigners to be his kin for inheritance of his whole estate, not the deserving or good, not the many well-born, powerful, or wise, but those who were by nature not of his kin at all, but children of wrath. And darkened sons of disobedience, his helpless, wicked, sinful enemies under thrall to the realm of darkness. In the historical context in which this epistle was delivered, adoption was usually limited to a father adopting people who were extended relatives. The idea of taking someone from a foreign country was was unheard of, let alone taking enemies. It'd be like the emperor taking a conquered enemy and saying, you are going to be a part of my family and you are going to inherit the kingdom one day. It was unheard of. This was mind-blowing. Well, just as we're chosen in Christ, in verse four, verse five says that we are adopted to God through Jesus Christ. He is the mediator, He is our adoption agency, and it isn't just Jesus trying to say, "Hey, Father, could you accept these guys, because they're pretty cool. In my book, he was eager, longing to do that. I think of couples who are just longing and have signed up for adoption, but they just wait and wait to get paired with a child that they can take home and have that child become their own. That longing and desire is nothing compared to God's desire to make people his own children. He does this according to the purpose of his will. If you have the New American Standard Bible, you'll see that it says the kind intention of his will, and then in the New King James Version it says the good pleasure of his will, so it's not just a purpose, it's a kind intention, it's his good pleasure that he decided to do this. It made him happy to do it. He was pleased to do it. This should all cause us to want to praise him for his amazing grace. The father adopts the family through his son, and he doesn't see the people that he adopts as inferior. That's, that's amazing. That's amazing. I hope that I treat all my children the same. In God's family, there's no Harry Potter is sleeping under the stairs. Everyone is treated equal. We're treated as co-heirs with Jesus Christ. Now, as I look around, I think I can confidently say, none of you are better than Jesus. Jesus is better than all of you, he is, but yet the Father sees us as co-heirs, as brothers, Jesus Christ on equal standing. That's amazing. He did this, he chose to do this before the foundation of the world out of his kind intention. Sometimes adoption gets a bad rap, and it really shouldn't. Sometimes people tease their younger siblings and say you're adopted, but they really shouldn't do that. Adoption is a beautiful picture. There's beautiful realities connected to it, and it's a beautiful picture of what God does for us, a set of potential parents who has the ability to bring a child in. Does now in America, if you have adopted children, they are to be treated as if they are your blood descendants, their blood, your own flesh and blood. I'm going to read what a judge would read at an adoption hearing before an adoption is finalized. This is American, you know, legal legal law. Here, a judge would read. I find it in the best interest that the child will be promoted by the adoption of the petitioners, the parents seeking to adopt, I find the minor child is suitable for adoption by the petitioners, and I hereby declare that the minor child to be the legal child of the petitioners. And then the names are given, the minor child will be the legal heir of the petitioners, and will be entitled to all rights and privileges, and will be subject to all obligations, as if he were a child naturally born to the petitioners. The final judgment of adoption creates a relationship between the adoptee and the petitioners, and all relatives of the petitioners that would have existed as if the adoptee was a blood descendant of the petitioners born within wedlock, entitled to all rights and privileges thereof.
  
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  The minor child is also subject to all obligations of a child being born to the petitioners. From here on out, the minor child will be known as, and then the new legal name is given, the last name. Of the parents, usually, if that is the legal standard of our society, How much more beautiful is the way that God adopts his children through Jesus Christ? This should cause us to praise him, to want to worship him, to glory in His grace, His unmerited favor, His His power that transforms us and makes us more like Him. God is is the source of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places that we enjoy. You should praise Him every minute of every day because of it. There's some implications for us as God's children living life together in Christ. Rejoice in being part of God's family, brothers and sisters. I know this will feel awkward, but just look around, look around at the people around you. Do it. Look, look around. Is this your family? God has made us family. He's adopted us into his family to enjoy him together to come together like a family meal holiday celebration. It's, it's a beautiful thing. Know that God wants to keep expanding his family, he wants to bring people in, he wants to keep adopting people. So be welcoming and inviting when you see people around you who are new, make them feel like part of the family, and if they're not part of the family, invite them. Being part of the family is a corporate thing, it's not about you as an individual. Marriages and families start to experience just immense conflict whenever someone in that marriage or family decides it's actually just about me as an individual, I don't care about the marriage, I don't care about the family, it's really about me, and we shouldn't treat our relationship with God as just this individual thing, there's a corporate nature I You have a family relationship with God, and if you are in Christ, God is not just your father, He's our Father. We approach Him together, we honor Him together, we praise Him together, we come together and figure out how we can give Him the praise that he's due, treating every day like it's Father's Day. Finally, represent your family well. There's a viral video of a football player, I think he probably had to have been college age because he had the name of his jersey on the back. And anyway, in this video, the son, he's actually, he goes up and he meets his mom and his stepfather before the game. He's all suited up in his uniform, and he has something to tell his stepfather. He says, "Hey, I want you to see something. I changed my name legally, and he turns around and shows him the name on the back, and it's the stepfather's last name. He's like, "You've been a father to me, I love you. And the dad cries and breaks down. It's the most emotional thing. And then the dad says, "You're my son. And so when God brings us into his family, he wants to give you a new name and a new identity. He wants you to put on that jersey and represent him well. If you're here struggling with feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, loneliness, I just want you to know that if you put your faith in Christ. It means that you're not only treasured now, or will be treasured, but you were treasured before the foundation of the earth. God has always been predetermined to love His children, and nothing could or ever will change that. That love should fill our mind, all of our minds, with awe, and we should respond in worship. If you are here and you don't know that love, and you haven't received it yet, come to Him, confess your need for Him, for a Savior. Believe that through Him you can take up your cross and follow Him, and be raised to new life in union with Christ, adopted as His child. God offers His children heavenly and spiritual blessings far beyond all comparison. So, brothers and sisters, rejoice in God's choosing and adopting by responding and worship to the praise of His glorious grace. Let's pray, you Father, we shouldn't be able to address you in that way, yet you have chosen to make it so.
  
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  You are so gracious, Lord, and you lavish. Your love, Lord, we are in awe of your kind intentions and your love. We're in awe that you would forgive any of us and choose us when we had so little to offer, Lord. Yet you, you take us and you justify us and you give us the hope of being conformed to your image, Lord, and you make us a part of your family, where we.. it's hard to wrap our minds around it, Lord, but we are treated, treated like the Son is treated, treated like your beloved Son, Jesus is treated. So we thank you and praise you. May our lives be an offering of worship, and may we live our lives together in community, bringing great glory to Your name. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Josh Gilchrist

Josh serves as Resident College Pastor for Faith's college ministry, Doxa. He and his wife, Pam, have three children.

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