In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,We were also assigned an inheritance in him, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will,In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will;
12 sermons cite this verse
… for your life. He has written down the day of your birth. He's written down the day of your death. If you don't believe that, just consider Ephesians 1 verse 11. Paul said, also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will. Every part of your life has been planned by God. There are no accidents in your life or the life of somebody you love. Everything, all things, including the day of your death are following the counsel of his will. And notice that word will is singular. God doesn't have multiple wills. He doesn't have multiple plans for your life. He doesn't have plan A. I hope this is what happens, God says. But if that doesn't work out, then I've got plan B and plan C. No, he has one secret plan that governs everything that happens in the universe and everything that happens in your life. Doesn't that give you confidence to know there are no mistakes in God's plan? That your life is in his hands. And that's why no Christian needs to fear his departure from this world. We don't need to fear death. First of all, death is never premature, but there's a second reason not to fear death. And that is death is a necessary transition to heaven. It's a necessary transition from this world to the next world. It's a little narrow passageway we must go from to leave the tyranny of this world and experience the freedom …
… Okay? This is saying Paul who in Ephesians 1, verses 3 through 14, it's a single run-on sentence in Greek. 12 verses are single run-on sentence in Greek. This is the sort of man Paul is. But here, fascinatingly, he confines himself to only 25 verses and less than 400 words total. But what is interesting is that these 25 verses force us to confront three excuses that I think Christians often have when it comes to remaining in unforgiveness. Three excuses that we will often use to justify why we will not forgive someone. And I want to say this too, I'm speaking primarily tonight to those who have been hurt, those who have been wronged. I'm not directing this message towards the wrongdoer. If that is you, you need to repent, you need to turn to Christ, and you need to seek forgiveness from the person you've wronged. But to be honest, I love you. God bless you. You're not really the focus of what I think we need to talk about. I'm speaking to those who have been wronged. You have been sinned against, and you are struggling to figure out how do I forgive in light of that sin. …
… leave here at 10, God decides. If you make it across the street or don't, God decides. That's the sovereign will of God in the teaching of verse 15. Also, the teaching of Hebrews, I mean Ephesians 1.11, God works all things together according to the counsel of his will. All things. Or Proverbs 16, the lot is cast in the lap. Every decision is from the Lord, which means the dice are rolled on the table in Reno or Las Vegas, the dice are rolled on the table, and every number is decided by God on the top of the dice. That's meticulous providence. Matthew 10, not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from your Father. Millions of sparrows are falling to the ground, I presume, every day in this world, dead because of old age. God decides when every one of them falls to the ground. That's meticulous providence. It's what Matthew 10 29 says. The king's heart is a a stream in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. Trump, you think you're in charge? You're not in charge. Putin, you're not in charge. Mamdani, you're not in charge. …
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 the glory of his grace, which he has blessed us, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will according to his the good pleasure or the purpose with which which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on the earth 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 were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory in him you also when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and believed in him were 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. …
… human action, God works. Ephesians 1 11 all things according to the counsel of his will let me draw out this implication for your immediate impact that means that this all pervasive all inclusive providence includes death and life and health and sickness and disability they're all in the hands of God Satan is real we just had in the chapel this morning Paul's thorn was a messenger of Satan Satan caused the woman that had been over for 18 years Jesus said that's Satan Satan did that and I'm going to straighten her up Satan is real He's just not ultimate. He can throw into prison. He can make sick. He can kill. Satan can kill you. Revelation 2.10 says that. But the banner that flies over is he meant it for evil. God meant it for good. what Satan means for evil, God always means for righteousness, justice, goodness. So Job's 10 children, they all died. They all died when the house fell on them. When a wind blew, a wind blew. …
… to the praise of his glory. Now, we've been looking at this chapter. We're looking at Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3 to 14. And we've said that it's all about, the whole chapter is the gospel of your salvation. That's a term that's found in verse 13, see? It says, when you were included in Christ, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you heard that and you believed it, you were marked with a seal and you, the promised Holy Spirit. So the point is, the gospel of salvation, the word gospel means good news. This chapter is a kind of inventory of all of the great things that when you become a Christian, you have. It's a little bit like buying a house and going through it to see what you bought, buying a car and driving it to see what you really have there. You bought something, what's really under the hood? and therefore we've been looking at this chapter and we saw in the first four verses, verses four to eight, the first thing God tells us that we have in Christ is adoption. We're brought into the family of God and he becomes no longer our boss or our supervisor or our task master but our father. And then secondly, we looked at verses nine to twelve and we see we not only get adoption but we get a kingdom. We get a God who's in charge of our lives and all of history. He's sovereign, and we looked at that. Now, thirdly, this is what we're looking at now …
… And I'm going to read just verses 12, pardon me, verses 9 to 12 of chapter 1. Ephesians 1, verses 9 to 12. and he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head even Christ in him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with his purpose the purpose of his will in order that we, who are the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory Ephesians 1, we said, is a kind of inventory of everything we have in Jesus Christ. I don't know if any of you are, most of you either too, you're not old enough to watch cartoons. and as a result, you might not know or remember much about Scrooge McDuck. …
For teaching time, we're going to look again at Ephesians chapter 1. I'd like to call your attention to the entire section that we've been looking at, Ephesians 1, verses 3 through 14. But tonight we're going to look again, in particular, at verses 9 to 12. It's all one thought, and yet there's divisions in the thought. And I'm going to read from verse 3 to 14, but tonight we're in particular going to look at verse 9 to 12. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we have forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. …
at least when I was here we were, I'd like to take a look again at this huge sentence that we started looking at in the late spring and early summer. It's Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3 to 14, and I'm going to show you tonight that there is a second major division in it, and I'd like to give you an overview of it. We've been looking for weeks at the beauty of the first part of that sentence and what it means that we were chosen to be adopted as his children, to be his sons. And we spent a number of weeks on what it means to be adopted. And I want you to know that I don't know if it helped you, but I wrote most of those sermons sitting in a convent on the shores of the Hudson River back in late May, and it changed my life. Just to think about the first part of the sentence. But starting at verse 9, we have a second part, and I'd like to introduce you to that tonight. Let me read you the whole sentence again. Chapter 1, verse 3 through 14. In the Greek, it was all one sentence, even though the English translators have had to break it up just to make it comprehensible. Praise be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be …
… We said last week that Ephesians 1, which we're beginning to look at, is Ephesians 1, verse 3 to 14. In the Greek original was one long sentence. boy now what am I doing wrong uh it was one long sentence and uh therefore it's a it's a massive build-up it's a statement in which Paul is trying to give us the entire scheme of how God saves us and I'd like to read just verses uh three to fourteen but we're only going to look at verse three four and five here tonight for a minute Paul says praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfillment to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we also were …
… so that you can eventually be a great and glorious person. now you can either stand up and look at your life on the platform of ephesians 1 11 ephesians 1 8 romans 8 28 genesis 50 20 it's up to you or else you can continue to look at it from the human point of view and say i don't get it i don't get it i don't get it i don't get it there's only one angle that works it's the biblical angle it's the god's perspective Now, we've said up to here that the Bible's talking about redemption from God's perspective, and in verses 3, 4, and 5, we've actually looked at the Father's role in our salvation. You see, it says what the Father does in our salvation. It says, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with everything in the heavenly realms. so he's talking about the Father. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. He predestined us to be adopted as his sons. Now, the point is, is elect, the Greek word elect, and the Greek word predestined means he has set and he has destined us, which means he is guaranteed that you and I, those of us who believe in Christ, He is guaranteed that we're going to be holy and blameless in his sight, that we're going to sit in glory with him. …
… it's broken into several sentences. Ephesians 1, verse 3 to 14 is one long sentence in Greek. And I'll give you some reasons why I think that happened. It's not good grammar. It's not, even in Greek, to have a sentence that long is not good grammar. It's not good form or style. But Paul was caught up. Let's take a look at this. Ephesians 1, verses 1 to 14. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, weigh every word. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Christ Jesus in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have …