GOD PICKED YOU

Study Scripture: Ephesians 1: 1 – 14

Background Scripture: Ephesians 1: 1 – 14

Lesson 8 November 5, 2022

Key Verse

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

Ephesians. 1:3

INTRODUCTION

Our Study Scripture has one focus that you should understand and on which you should hold on tightly. The idea in this first chapter of the book of Ephesians makes it quite clear that you have a destiny, and that destiny has been given to you because God has destined you in love. God’s love which passes all understanding and God’s will has placed you in this destiny. Note however that this of course requires you to live a life of love given the fact that you have been selected, chosen, and designated for that purpose.

Many people of course have great difficulty in understanding and accepting this for they do not understand or sometimes want to understand that they are dependent on the grace of God.

Because the society teaches men and women to be self-reliant and that being dependent on others is either bad or immoral, this teaching that they have to be in control and take care of Number One creates a destructive kind of pride which gets in the way of receiving the ultimate blessing.

This Lesson Study therefore requires that you examine yourself to see what God is doing and what He is aiming for you. You need to look at what God is doing in your life, in the life of the church, and in the life of those around you. When you do that you should examine whether the Gospel you have heard and believed has changed the way you see yourself, your relationships, and the purpose for being where you are.

Is there any appreciation of God in your life?

Do you appreciate that He has saved you out of darkness and the bondage of your sinfulness and taken you into a new place?

Do you understand that it is God and not you who has taken the initiative by His grace and has graciously been transforming and preparing you to become actively involved in what He is doing?

If you have never seriously considered who you are and where you’re at, the Apostle Paul now makes it clear that the new condition to which you have been introduced by your redemption has as one writer reminded us made us “absolutely, fundamentally, different”, and has put us on display before this world and as well during the future ages of eternity. Therefore God expects His people to live “holy and without blame before Him in love”.

The Study therefore encourages you to settle the question of whether you are a son or daughter adopted by the father by your coming to a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That will settle the question as to whether you are among those “foreknown”, “elected”, “chosen”, “predestined”, removed from the old father who brought you death, and now taken over by the new Father, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Carefully note however that this is not man’s choice, but the sovereign purpose of God based on the overflowing love of God. The Scriptures tell us that God is good. This God of the Bible is affirmed to be just. This God rules with equity the affairs of the earth.

Our Study in the book of Ephesians is placed firmly in the context of the work of the Father, the work of the Son the Lord Jesus Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

The emphasis is on the glory of God’s grace, and His overflowing love for those who were not good persons, but those steeped in sin and iniquity.

The general and specific terms that describe what God has done for sinners through the death of Jesus Christ all connote images and emotions of great joy and this is seen in such terms as, saved, salvation, redeemed, eternal life, heaven.

But beyond the immediate sense of bliss, goodwill, excitement, and the notion of a new life there is much for the believer to learn with regard to God’s gracious love for him or her in Jesus Christ. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has much in it and has more than any other Epistle provided much detail on the realities of being “in Christ”, to use one of the Apostle’s favorite terms.

The Apostle writes of the greatness, grandeur, and wonder of what God has done for believers “in Christ”, and in a general overview of the plan of salvation using fundamental Christian terms like election, redemption, forgiveness, sealed, and God’s initiating grace. He goes on to pray for God’s wisdom and revelation to his readers.

It will be helpful for us to look back at where one is coming from and one’s present status for this will help us set the path going forward.. It is therefore interesting to look again at what we were before we were “in Christ”. This will heighten our awareness of what God has called us from and by doing this our Study will help us

Gain a deeper appreciation for God
Strengthen our faith
Enable us to remember our repentance.

In this vein and in a more particular emphasis, the Apostle will recall that the believers comes from a hopeless and helpless condition for they were spiritually dead. But into this terminal situation the Apostle recalls God’s gracious intervention so in chapter 2 he will begin with the phrase, but God.

Our Study Text will therefore speak of those who were formerly “dead” but made “alive” through God’s unmerited favor, with His power and His grace shown in Jesus Christ.

Context is of course critically important when we are looking at Scripture. To better understand the Apostle’s comments we should recall that in Paul’s day there was a belief structure called Gnosticism which denied that earthly matter is of importance to God. One writer states the effects of this belief structure and he states:

“From that thesis they moved to the logical conclusion that the Jesus who died on the cross was a man of only physical matter and was not the Exalted One who provides salvation. In other words, the Gnostics had a hard time with the idea of Jesus being fully God and fully man. They preferred the fully God part. That was one problem Paul had to deal with.

Another had to do with a group of people Paul was constantly having to confront. He called them Judaizers. … They were Christians from a Jewish background, like Paul, and who also allowed for Gentiles to be accepted into the church as Paul did. However they demanded that such people first become Jews and adhere strictly to the Jewish laws. And that was very much unlike Paul. They followed Paul everywhere he went, and upon his leaving a church would try to undo and undermine much of what he had accomplished”.

And now for the hat trick.

Another that opposed the apostle were those he called the false teachers. Why should Paul label them with such a negative connotation? Well, they claimed ownership of a special instruction given only to a privileged few, and they guarded these secrets zealously. If Paul claimed nothing else, he advocated a gospel that was freely given to all and not just those who were fortunate enough to be let in on the secret”

The Apostle has emphasized to all those in the Ephesian church, to the Jewish believers, and to us who have come to Christ that everyone should understand their circumstances and so Paul had to explain God’s larger picture which covers their lives and gives them the context for the life that they were living.

This letter accordingly was given to a church that was called the “crown jewel”, the faithful church among the churches in Asia Minor . Every scholar considers this letter the most concise and comprehensive summary of the good news of Christianity. Its implications are tremendous and it will always move you when you read it carefully to wonder and worship and examine and challenge the consistency of life.

This ‘queen of the epistles’ was written to a church that the Apostle first visited on the 2^nd missionary journey described in Acts chapter 18. On the 3^rd missionary journey Paul again came to the city and spent 3 years there preaching and teaching in the school of Tyrannus and engaging in a wide-ranging ministry in that city. The gifted Apollos we are told also went to that city after Paul’s ministry there. Acts 28 tells us that when Paul was heading for Jerusalem on his fateful visit there, he called the Ephesian elders to come and meet him and he gave them powerful instructions and prophetic teaching on what would happen to them.

The Apostle John spent the last years of his life in that city. Tradition says that the Virgin Mary lived and died there and was also buried at Ephesus. So we know that this church was extremely important because of the tremendous ministry there.

Now we see the tremendous message as the Apostle rejoiced at what had happened in this Ephesian church.

It is useful for us to summarize this new condition in which believers find themselves. We will look in detail at these. But we list some of them as follows:

Made alive together with Christ
Joined to Christ, for He lives in us and we become one person with Him
God is now the Father of the believer
Believers are given a great sense of belonging
They are raised up with Christ
They sit with Christ in the heavenly places
They are guaranteed an exceedingly rich heritage of continually unfolding blessings because they are sealed by the Holy Spirit.

It is amazing to note that this is considered to be one of the “prison epistles” which included Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians because Paul was physically confined.- He notes this in Ephesians 3: 1, 4: 1, 6: 20. He was imprisoned in a room and under house arrest and he awaited his hearing before the Roman Emperor.

This confinement and threat of execution did not however stop Paul from outlining and discussing some of the blessings given by God discussed in our Study Scripture.

-He told us that we are chosen or elected

-Bestowed favor, verse 6

-Redeemed and forgiven, verse 7

-Revealed to us the mystery of His will, verse 9

-Given an inheritance, verse 11,

-Given salvation, verse 13

-Blessed with redemption, verse 14.

The Apostle therefore is providing us and the Ephesian church with the reason for their being. He’s telling them that there is hope and joy because of their real faith. Their physical circumstances in the world cannot change their position.

The Apostle wanted the Ephesians to see their place in God’s plan and scheme of things and to see His eternal purpose.

Behind all of this is Paul’s rejection of his opponents’ position. They claimed that Gentiles were inferior in their calling to faith in Jesus Christ. Paul made it abundantly clear that it was not true that because the Jews were the first to be called to God’s kingdom it meant that the Gentiles were not called and did not have an equal position.

Paul insisted that God’s children are equal and would be involved in the gathering up of all things in the Lord Jesus Christ. Their salvation and adoption which apply to all equally was because of what Christ had done for them and so everyone is entitled to spiritual blessings though the Jewish people had first obtained the inheritance and assigned a role in history that came first before the role given to the Gentiles.

It is important therefore for us to join with the Apostle Paul in celebrating the plan of God and enjoying the pledge of our inheritance given by the Holy Spirit. So we wait patiently, actively seeking to be always in the presence of Christ right where we are for we know that God is in control.

Our task therefore is to witness to others pointing out that that God has given a promise to His people and has guaranteed that His promise will be fulfilled.

So we will now look at who we are and what that means. We will have to come to recognize our identity and behave according to that. We will see that the Lord God has called us to be part of His grand story and how it should affect our life day by day.

THE TEXT

Verse 1. The Apostle Paul has set out to give us foundation truths. Probably because of this and the importance of the church in Ephesus there has been much debate about this letter, who wrote it, and who it was intended to be received. This was based on what some scholars consider to be its somewhat different linguistic and stylistic features mainly when it was compared with the book of Colossians. The early church however accepted it without dispute and assigned the writing of this epistle to Paul.

Paul described himself as an apostle which means literally “sent one”. The word can be used in a general sense to refer to a representative of Jesus Christ such as a modern missionary but it usually refers to the 12 Apostles or Paul who saw the risen Christ. Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus when he headed to that city to persecute Christians. The Lord Jesus commissioned Paul and sent him out with the Gospel message. This sending out was due to God’s will or decision. Paul did not choose this apostleship and we are told that in Acts 26: 16-18.

We therefore can immediately see the divine initiative. It was not something that Paul could imagine that he should or could do. He laid stress therefore that he was an apostle by calling, sent forth by God himself and made an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.

He was sent to go deep into the Roman empire and though he longed to be a missionary to his Jewish brethren, his role was to be a missionary primarily to the Gentiles but also to others.

The Apostle tells us that he is writing to the “saints” in Ephesus who were faithful in Christ Jesus.

Note however that it is to the same church that 40 years later the Lord Jesus Christ had to send a letter

It is a very disheartening thing to think that the church of that caliber that had had the ministry of the apostles Paul and John forty years later could leave its first love.

That is a great warning to every single church that claims to be a church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The word “saints” (Greek hagiois, holy ones), referred to people set apart by God for His use.

We are told that in some manuscripts there is a blank space where the word Ephesus is and so some think that this letter was intended to circulate among Christian churches to teach them about God’s eternal plan rather than directly sent to the very important church in Ephesus.

Note the important idea in this first verse that this letter is addressed to the faithful saints for we know that not all saints are faithful but the Ephesian brethren were faithful. When Paul wrote this letter they were following the teachings that theyreceived. Paul could therefore describe their position as being physical in Ephesus, but spiritually in God’s family because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were therefore “in Christ”.

This of course meant that Jesus was living His life through those in the Ephesian church. They had been separated unto him from the outside and hostile pagan influences. Ephesus was famous for its temple of Artemis and Cybele the mother goddess adopted by Greece. The encyclopedia tells us:

Artemis of Ephesus is represented as a woman with many breasts hence her name is Artemis Polimastros. These breasts symbolize the vitality and the nourishing capacity of the earth. She is the goddess of nature, of productivity, of chastity, and the protector of wild animals and sailors. Her cult spread to the Mediterranean shores as even as far as Marseilles and Spain. The statue of the goddess Artemis of Ephesus is believed to have been dedicated by the Amazons and are sent directly from the heavens. It’s feet are in a case, and it is decorated up to the ways with reliefs of the heads of lions, sphinxes, bees, rams, dear, crabs, bulls, and Griffins.

The Ephesus people knew how to make maximum use of the Artemis cult. The goddess, regulated commerce, solved difficulties, and did good; anybody who took refuge within the precincts of the her temple was free from prosecution. It was commonly held that the statue was not made by man, but had descended from the heavens, together with the Temple of Artemis. It attracted pilgrims from everywhere who paid their respects and made offerings.

Ephesus presented the character of a priestly city. Artemis Temple of Artemis was served by a large hierarchy of religious personnel. First and foremost in rank were the Megabizes and Eunuchs who were attended by young virgins. Among the great numbers who attended the goddess were male and female priests, receptionist, supervisors, drummers, bearers of the scepter, theologians, mounted guards, cleaners, chambermaids of the goddess Artemis and acrobats and flute players who performed at sacred meals. The ceremonies were usually impressive and accompanied by spectacles. In Ephesus there was a very efficient organization which tried to attract visitors to the Temple of Artemis from other cities”.

Living in Ephesus was therefore a profitable but a very dangerous enterprise. These faithful brethren faced all kinds of attractions and the temptations were numerous. Our environment does not compare at all to the evil prominent in that age.

Verse2.The “saints” were people that the Apostle stressed had been separated by God. They were faithful in Jesus Christ and so were the believing ones, those who had responded to the gospel of Christ. They were in unity with Christ by faith. For them therefore Paul gave his typical greeting of grace and peace for he knew that they were receiving God’s grace before they could walk in peace with Him.

Grace expresses God’s unmerited favor and divine enablement. Peace is the translation of the Hebrew word “shalom” and that is the condition believers have resulting from God’s grace to them.

It is from God the Father that we find grace and peace. But here we are now introduced into the work of the triune God.

Verse 3. Verses 3 through 14 are one sentence in the Greek text and Paul quickly tells us and takes us from one blessing to the next. The work of the Father is dealt with before the work of the Son and the work of the Spirit, but all are glorified by Paul in the work of redemption.

The Father is to be blessed in the sense of recognizing His goodness in blessing the believer with every spiritual blessing. The resources are His.

The Blessing of the Father is in a location, and that location is to be found in Christ.

These are spiritual blessings and not material blessings for material blessings are of a lower quality. These blessings are in heavenly places in Christ and so they are higher, better and more secure than the material earthly blessings.

This means that every blessing we receive we receive in Christ because God wants to bless us with every blessing that can possibly be available to us. Charles Spurgeon therefore reminds us:

“Our thanks are due to God for all temporal blessings; they are more than we deserve. But our thanks ought to go to God in thunders of hallelujahs for spiritual blessings. A new heart is better than a new coat. To feed on Christ is better than to have the best earthly food. To be an heir of God is better than being the heir of the greatest nobleman. To have God for our portion is blessed, infinitely more blessed than to own broad acres of land. God has blessed us with spiritual blessings. They are the rarest, the richest, the most enduring of all blessings; they are priceless in value”.

The meaning of the word “blessed “as it refers to God means that this is a blessing that is due to God for He is worthy of blessing. There is a different meaning of blessed in the sense of an individual that has received a blessing. So in Scripture we see that when the angel talked to Mary about the coming birth of Jesus it is clear that Mary has received a blessing and since she is the recipient she’s not the one that gave a blessing. The word used for her is different from the meaning of the word used for what is due to the Father.

So when the Text says “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” it means that God is truly worthy of blessing for blessings come from Him.

The reference “in the heavenly places” tells us where the blessings come from. The Apostle clearly indicates that the believers are presently in his or her spiritual life and so physically when they are on earth spiritually they are already with Christ in the heavenly realms for they are united with Jesus Christ and are where He is now. Since the believer is “in Christ” their saving faith places them in heavenly realms and when they leave this earth they will be in Christ’s presence. See 2 Corinthians 5:6-8.

Verse 4.We are now introduced to the Father’s initiative. This is the ground of the blessing for we are told that God has sovereignly chosen us. God has affection for us and He has reached down to draw us to Him.

There is a mystery in this because we are dealing with the greatness of God. People therefore have for the last two thousand years tried to explain Paul’s formula but it is beyond us to fully understand how God in eternity past before the foundation of the world would bring us into His covenant love and chose us to be part of His family. We know that we have to respond to that through faith and the merging of our faith with God’s choosing is really a wonderful mystery.

Our blessing is because God has chosen us before the foundation of the world and God’s choice or election is the fountain from which our blessings flow.

Note however that the word “chosen” or “elected” is in an act that refers to the past and so this electing act is something that has happened in the past before the foundation of the world.

It is clear that God has a personal interest in our election for it expressed His love for us. There is an intimacy that exists between the Father in heaven and those that He has chosen and so the Father loved us and chose us for Himself even before we loved Him. He loved even while we were His enemy.

In His great High Priestly prayer Jesus reminded us that it was His Father that gave us to Him and therefore we are looking at divine selection. This divine selection is intended that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.

Clearly, God did not choose us to be a part of his family so that He would not have to punish us. He chose us to transform us into the kind of person that He originality created man to be and so He has to rescue us from the sin that marred the beauty of His creation, to restore us to the kind of people He could enjoy a full life of fellowship with.

It is therefore God’s grace that has brought about this enormous initiative toward us for God has chosen us to be holy in Christ because of His grace which makes Him come after us in love with all the resources of heaven.

Verse 5. Salvation therefore will come to the elect when they trust in Jesus Christ.

One writer explains:

“Now everybody finds the doctrine of election difficult.’ Didn’t I choose God?’ somebody asks indignantly; to which we must answer ‘Yes, indeed you did, and freely, but only because in eternity God had first chosen you’.

‘Didn’t I decide for Christ? asks somebody else; to which we must reply ‘Yes, indeed you did, and freely, but only because in eternity God had first decided for you”.

Another writer goes into even more detail to answer our questions:

“God did not choose those who were good. He did not choose those whom he by foresight saw would believe, and then ratified their choice of him by his choice of them. But rather he has chosen according to his good pleasure.

Now when we say he has chosen us according to his good pleasure, we do not mean that this is a chance that has any significance. Occasionally people will look at something like this and say, “Well, that’s just like God saying ‘eeny-meeny-miny-mo’ and picking some and not picking others”. Well, think about it. Divine election is not like that, in the first place, because that kind of choice is an impersonal choice. It’s a kind of choice into which a person does not really enter.

In the second place, that’s a choice by chance.

And in the third place, we don’t usually say, “eeny-meeny-miny-mo” unless it’s an insignificant issue. In fact, that’s what children say. They play the game of eeny-meeny-miny-mo.

God doesn’t play that game.

In the first place, divine election is very personal. When it says he foreknew us, it means he entered into intimate relationship with us: the relationship of love. It’s a sovereign kind of love. So it’s a kind of love he set upon us. It’s the kind of love a man has for a woman, or woman has for a man. Men, don’t, in selecting a wife-I can’t speak for the ladies, of course-what, man in selecting a wife do not say, “Now, I know forty-two women. Eeny-meeny-miny-mo. Well, it turned out to be Gertrude”.

No, no. In fact, we don’t even-when we choose a wife-choose on the basis of; is she a good cook? Does she have a good bank account? Is she good-looking? Would she care for me when I am sick? Does she have compassion? Is she stylish in the clothes that she wears? Is she frugal? Has she got a good job? We don’t do things like that. We might be better off, some of us, if we did, but we don’t do it that way. We fall in love. And in fact, you will see individuals who had the opportunity to marry someone who was rich, and beautiful, and had a good job. And instead, they married someone, well, they’re not so beautiful. They don’t have a job. And they are gonna be a problem and care, and nevertheless they love them and they have fallen in love with them, and they married them. And they are happily married to them.

You see, divine love is like that. When God sets his love on us, it was like a person falling in love. It’s very personal. It’s very wonderful. So, it’s not something that’s impersonal. It’s not something that’s by chance. It’s not chance, when love takes place. And it’s certainly not insignificant. It’s the most significant thing in the world, but it significant for the whole Body of Christ. Because the whole Body of Christ is the object of the determination of the love of God. And it was his purpose in ages past to gather together a certain people. So it is not insignificant. In fact, the whole Church of Jesus Christ is the product of divine, purposive election. It’s a matter of magnificent truth. And it seems to me it’s one of the greatest things that the word of God speaks about”.

God chose us out by the means of predestination which means marking us out beforehand (the meaning of proorisas, translated “predestined). One writer tells us that predestination looks more to the “how” than at the “who” of election. He tells us that election emphasizes people and predestination means.

The stress is on the goal God had for He predestinated us to be like Jesus Christ, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will”.

Verse 6. This of course will bring praise honor and glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit for we will praise the magnificence of God’s grace His favor that we did not deserve but which He had shown toward men.

It is by His grace that we had been made accepted in the “beloved”. We know that the term “beloved” is a term for the Messiah and so we know that we are accepted in Him because of His redeeming work that He has done as our representative.

Be careful to note that we shouldn’t be acceptable were it not for that redeeming work.

Verse 7. It is because of “Him”, the Son, that we have redemption.

Now therefore we are looking at the work of the Son after examining the work of the Father. We must remember that men on whom God has set His love and whom He created are sinners and they stand under divine condemnation being unholy people. God has to do something for them and the Holy Spirit knows that He cannot indwell unholy people and He knows that God will not just say the word that these people are forgiven just like that for the requirements of justice must be met. Justice is a virtue or characteristic of God and the demands of justice must be met and so something must be done for men to be accepted. And so we are now told about the work of redemption.

The Father proposed our redemption, and the Son purchased our redemption, notes one scholar.

There are several words for redemption. One agorazo in 1 Corinthians 6: 20 : 7:23 2 Peter 2:1 means to buy, to purchase in the market (or slave market).

The related verb exagorazo means to buy out, to purchase out of the market(or slave market).

A noun lytron refers to a ransom, the price of release as in Matthew 20: 28 and Mark 10: 45.

Other words or verbs for ransom means “To ransom, to free by paying a ransom price”.

The related noun refers “to the act of freeing by paying a ransom price” while another noun refers to “A buying back, a setting free by paying a ransom price” found in Luke 21 : 28 ; Romans 3:24 and other passages.

Whatever word is used for redemption it is clear that the immediate result for man is liberation from the slavery of sin and that means that God has forgiven our sins and transgressions.

So the Apostle uses the phrases “in whom we have redemption ”which tells us that there is no other way to achieve redemption. Redemption comes in “the beloved”.

The word the apostle Paul likes to use is the word for active redemption which means ransoming away from. It is an intensive word and this means that by the ransom we are ransomed away from the servitude to sin which keeps on binding us to it for sin is our natural state .

It is made very clear that the redemption is by His blood for this is His sacrifice, a violent sacrifice which brought about that redemption. We often say we are redeemed by the Cross and that is true but the stress on the word rests on the fact that we are redeemed through the blood sacrifice just as what was occurring in the Old Testament Levitical economy..

Therefore the redemption is defined as resulting in the forgiveness of sins because of the riches of the grace of God.

This clearly tells us that the redemption is of maximum greatness since the sins that we have committed is vast. The forgiveness of sins relates to something vast. This forgiveness of sins past, present, and future sins are all covered by the blood of Christ and therefore we know that it is according to the riches of His grace that we are forgiven. This is extraordinary forgiveness because of extraordinary riches of grace.

Verse 8. This forgiveness of sin is a lavish forgiveness and shows us abundant grace which exceeds the minimum that we needed. So we know that the benefits of Christ’s redemption is extraordinary and numerous though the Apostle does not even list them here.

But we know that all of this was done in wisdom (Sophia) which one scholar calls the highest and noblest, and it involves insight or understanding that is out of this world Grace therefore has abounded and the wisdom used is the insight that is good and wise.

Now that believers are “in Christ” they have been given wisdom and they have a look on life which is different from the world for this different outlook comes from the word of God which reflects the standard of God.

Verse 9. God has given us so much abounding grace that we have known by divine revelation what the will of God is. We understand the mystery of His will. God had a purpose and He has revealed to the believers His purpose. This He has done by His infinite wisdom for God knows that when He displays wisdom and insight which belong to Him we will respond to it for we know that this wisdom and insight are not ours but God’s.

Verse 10. There is the divine revelation of God’s purpose which the world does not know or can appreciate. The believer knows that history is moving forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the establishment of His kingdom on earth. God has determined that we have that kind of insight. So believers know that in the fullness of time God intends to gather everything in one and put everything “in Christ”, and this includes everything in heaven and everything on earth for they will be put in Christ, reunited under the Messiah with restoration, unity and everything under the headship under the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ. And things that are offensive to God and His Christ will be eliminated and all the beautiful things will be under the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 11. After the period of time with Jesus as the mediator of the New Covenant, we who have been “in Him” will have God’s inheritance. This inheritance will be great because we will be made like Christ. God will not just have one son but God will bring many sons into glory, giving them a body like onto Jesus Christ’s own body of glory. This will manifest throughout eternity God’s glory.

God therefore intends to bring the people of Israel into their inheritance and the Gentiles which are now part of the body of Christ with the people of Israel into the inheritance.

Verse 12. Divine providence has worked all things according to the glory of God. Those that God had chosen first to carry his message to the world, namely the people of Israel will in the fullness of time come into their full inheritance. Those first called of Israel will be manifested to the praise of His glory.

Verse 13.The Gentiles had heard the gospel, had believed it, had committed themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ and so they had been sealed by the Holy Spirit. This was logical for all of these events happened at the same time. Note therefore that if a person hears the gospel and believes the gospel that person was sealed with the Holy Spirit. This is the result of belief for the receipt of the things of God comes because of the Holy Spirit. He brings every believer to faith in Christ. The evidence therefore that is required is the belief in the gospel.

Verse 14. The Spirit of God therefore gives the believer the down payment, the guarantee of the inheritance until the time when everything will be brought together in Christ to the praise of the glory of God.

This obviously means that one has to demonstrate evidence of the presence of God in their lives. This we call demonstrating the fruit, not the fruits, but the fruit of the Spirit. Believer need all the virtues which make up the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit testifies to the validity of the ownership of the Lord. The transformation necessary must take place.

So we have been told about the spiritual blessings with their election, predestination, adoption into the family of God, grace, redemption, forgiveness, knowledge, sealing of the Spirit, and inheritance. All of this happens “in Christ” . It happens because of the will of the Father and the work of the triune God.

CONCLUSION

The work of the Father, the work of the Son, and the work of the Holy Spirit has guaranteed your future filled with blessings. The man- centered world created from the standpoint of men will only take a person on the broad road which leads to destruction.

So we pay attention to the work of the Father in election, the work of the Son in redemption, the work of the Holy Spirit in permanently indwelling the saints of God to the praise of the glory of God.

God has worked all things according to His will and His will means that there is hope and joy in real faith.

God has destined us for adoption as His. We will be His children through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will. So as you think about worship think about your place in God’s scheme of things. You have a part in His blessing. Others will obtain their inheritance and you should pay attention to the redemption that God has brought so that you will have your inheritance. His eternal purpose includes you.

Life is bigger than you think. The Study Scripture tells you that God is speaking to you about your identity as well as the identity of all those around you.

There are many questions that we cannot answer for God has not revealed everything to us. We are like children and we therefore cannot understand everything that we want to. But we do know that the Verses tells us that God the Father chooses you before the foundation of the world and has predestined

Do not forget that the verses are in the plural. God has chosen us and predestined us so that we will be holy and blameless.

Note that the language of the Apostle Paul makes clear that salvation rests on the work of God for this is something that God has done, starting it before the foundation of the world. All along it has been God’s plan that He would as God made everything according to His will and therefore in His unimaginably great love He has picked you.

It has been made clear that none of us can come to God on our own because we have long ago turned away from God. So salvation has to begin with God and not with us, with His work, are not our own. The language used therefore comforts us.

Our culture will continue to scream at us to tell us that it should choose who we are. You have a choice to make and you must choose your brand, your identity. But be relieved, it’s not actually totally up to you.

Once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you need to know that God has chosen you. So as Psalm 46: 10 says,

“Be still and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations

I will be exalted in the earth “

So as the Psalm said

God is our refuge and strength,

A very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear,

Even though the earth be removed.

And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

Though its waters roar and be troubled,

Though the mountains shake with its swelling.

There is a river whose streams

shall make glad the city of God,

The holy place of the Tabernacle of the Most High.

The emphasis is on grace in creation and grace in redemption.

Remember that God planned all of these things before we who will have received grace came on the scene. So the plan of God was necessary and still is necessary.

So associate yourself with Jesus because everything will be wrapped up in Him. Reposition yourself in Christ for you are redeemed, chosen, and sealed. The purposes of God abound and they reach out for you the most and grace abound to the praise of God’s glory.

You have been redeemed and adopted. So live according to that way. ”