that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
16 sermons cite this verse
… grace, which he has freely given us where in the one he loves in him. See how this is all positional. 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, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed. Where do you purpose all of his good pleasure? In Christ. To be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment. To bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him, positional, question is looming today. Are you in Christ? We were also, say it with me, chosen. Now your translation may have a different expression there. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Having been, uh-oh, second time we've seen this word, predestined, whoo, look out, according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. …
… 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. …
… according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, which are on earth, in him. In him we also have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. And all God's people said, amen.
… according to the riches of his grace which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself. Which he purposed in himself. That he's decided before time has begun that he loves you. That he has a plan for your life. So when we take that view that God has already decided and we kind of put it on the second shelf and we take what people say about us and we take what we can attain and what we can maximize and how much is in our bank account. We were telling God ultimately that his view of us is secondary. This is the lie of image and influence management. And in a sense, we are rejecting God's approval of us. This is what Saul's doing. In this passage, here's more symptoms if you find yourself wondering if this is you. Number one, do you expect thank you for being obedient? …
… 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 purpose, which he has set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven, things on earth in him. Let's pray. Father, we come to you not even that we can do so, addressing you as father is only because we do so in your only eternal son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask you, Father, again tonight, that you would bless your word, that you would bless the preaching of your word. Spirit, would you hold up Christ to us again tonight through your word and bless our hearts. We need you. We need your help. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. I wonder if, as a child, you had something that really comforted you, Something that was a source of comfort. Or maybe you are a child here tonight or just a little past childhood and you've got an item or a place or a person or a thing. …
… 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. Now before I pray again, let me say something from chapter one encouraging and guiding to the way I want to pray for you and me. …
… 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 …
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 …
… in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. But the key here is he predestined us to be adopted as his sons. For the last two weeks we've been looking at this. We've talked about the importance of the doctrine, the cruciality of it. We've talked about the fact that everything God in all of eternity has planned, you see, all of his plan, he predestined us, everything came down to this, the pinnacle of everything he wanted to do, the capstone and the climax of all of his plans of history, the whole point of Jesus' death on the cross and his redemption, all the things we've been looking at for a number of weeks, this is the apex. This is what it all comes down to. This is the highest thing that any religion even offers its people, to be adopted as his sons. We saw, for example, that this happens because of Jesus' death and his redemption. You know, the subtle beauty, I think, in the structure that's very subtle underneath the parable of the prodigal son that's so easy to miss is that the only way the prodigal son is able to come back after his sin and rebellion into the welcome of the father is at the expense of the elder brother. The father cannot exactly freely bring back the younger brother, the prodigal son. He can't do it freely because you see, everything that he's giving the prodigal son now belongs to the elder brother. Do you remember …
… in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. This is God's word. But we're looking here. He destined us to be adopted as his sons. This is Father's Day. And I noticed that yesterday in the religion, one of the religion writers of the New York Times, Peter Steinfeld, had an interesting statement to make. He said, with all the flap about family values, people don't seem to notice that it's not really the question of why there's so many single mothers. He said, the real question is why there's so many absent fathers. and he comes right out in that little article. It's on page 11, no, page 9 of yesterday's paper and he says, we need to ask a question. Now, I'm not going to answer this question. It's just a good question. This isn't our basic purpose tonight. He says, in 1960, one out of every 20 births was to a mother without a father living at home and today it's one out of four. …
… in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. Now, let's remember what this is about. The word saved. This is all about what it means to be saved. Kathy and I remember when we first became Christians back in our 20s, we were so afraid of how we might look, we often would say, I'm a Christian. But, you know, not one of those kinds that goes around saying everybody's saved. Kathy used to introduce herself, say, I'm a Christian, but not like Billy Graham, you know, that kind of Christian. And then, you know, as time went on, it started to dawn on us, we really are like that kind of Christian. It took us a while to see that the word saved, are you saved? Though many people find that offensive, and many people identify that word with shallow and narrow-minded religion. We've said every week the word saved is actually not a shallow and narrow thing, but instead the Bible shows us it's the richest and the most broad and deep concept possible. And all we're trying to do is unpack the word saved. What does it mean to be saved? That's what this whole paragraph is about. And we've already seen the, you might say, the reason that we're saved. We looked at that a few weeks ago. And the reason we're saved is because he chose us. He loved us. He put his love on us. And then secondly, we saw the how we're saved, the why and the how. The why is because …
We're going to look at verse 7 for the last time. So when I get to verse 7, I'll read it slowly, but look at the sentence, look at the unit. Ephesians 1, verses 4 through 8. 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. Let's look for the last time at verse 7. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Let's just look at the word forgiveness and redemption for one last time. Last week, well, no, last time, we looked at the first aspect of redemption. Tonight, I'd like to look at the second aspect. Redemption, the word redemption is in Greek, it's the word apolutron, which means a ransom. And a ransom means, has two sides to it. A ransom means, first of all, that the parties that are being paid for are in some sort of bondage. …
… 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 …
… 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 …