The gift of thy Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom, with whom, through whom, thou
hast given us all things.
We ask that the eyes of our understanding
may be opened, that we may see the
things that thou hast prepared for them that
love thee.
Speak to our hearts today, show us where
we are, where thou dost want us to
be, the provisions thou hast made so that
we can be where and what thou dost
want us to be.
And then incline our hearts with that firm
unfaltering purpose, that we'll not be content with
ourselves until the Lord Jesus is satisfied with
us.
We know that one day we'll awaken his
likeness, but today we realize that we're not,
thou art not through with us, there's still
more.
And we welcome everything that thou dost do
because we know thy purpose is to conform
us to the image of thy Son.
We worship thee, we adore thee, thou God
of all grace.
And may these meditations in today and in
these ensuing days and this month cause our
hearts to be filled with praise and adoration,
love and thanksgiving.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Ephesians, we're there again.
Two years ago when I came with you,
we were in to the epistle of the
Colossians and we learned a little bit about
Colossae.
Last year we were considering the epistle to
the Philippians and we learned a bit about
Philippi.
Now today we are going to go to
the epistle to the Ephesians but with a
very specific purpose, to see in it that
which sets forth our God in his sovereignty.
Now, the Bible does not teach systematic theology.
Did you know that?
No, it doesn't.
Men systematize theology.
The Bible teaches responsibility.
The Bible teaches us how to worship, how
to pray, how to praise, how to adore,
how to obey, how to serve.
But it doesn't teach systematic theology.
That which we call systematized theology is man's
effort to bring together all that the Scripture
has to say about a particular aspect of
truth.
Now, when we say, therefore, we are considering
the sovereignty of God, we are not doing
it from the standpoint of Hodges or Strong
or Burkow or any of the theologians.
We are doing it from the standpoint of
the apostle who gave to us the truth
and the testimony and the witness and the
revelation, but he did it in the stream
of responsibility and worship and adoration, service.
That's where we find the teaching.
And we begin with the first verse of
the first chapter of Ephesians.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the
will of God.
So right at the very outset, we're seeing
the sovereignty of God introduced in the text.
He's an apostle by the will of God,
not by the will of his parents, who
undoubtedly dedicated him to that highest of service,
namely to be a religious teacher, for he
had been born into a Roman, a Jewish
family, but with Roman citizenship, thus entitling him
to the highest privileges of education and opportunity
of acquaintance with leaders.
And as a Pharisee, of course, he was
given privilege of being associated again with these
teachers whose theology was fundamental and orthodox, as
in contrast to the Sadducees, who were liberal
in every aspect.
And Paul had committed himself to Judaism to
such a degree that when Christ appeared on
the scene after his resurrection and there was
this testimony that he was alive from the
dead, Saul of Tarsus considered this a major
threat to the security of Judaism and devoted
his energy to the extermination of this heretical
sect that dared to say that a man
had come back from the dead.
And it was in this zeal and in
this dedication that he had stood by, holding
the garments and thus approving as a Pharisee
and as a Roman the breaking of the
law, which said that all execution had to
be by the Romans, couldn't be by the
Jews.
And yet he there consented because of the
horrendous nature in his eyes of the affirmation
of Stephen that Jesus Christ was alive and
standing in the right hand of the throne
of God and that he could see him
and talk to him, which, if all of
which were true, meant that indeed this heretical
sect wasn't heretical and Christ had risen from
the dead.
So here's a man totally dedicated to the
extermination of Christianity who says, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, by the will of God.
And you recall there on the road to
Damascus when he, with his jaw jutting and
his teeth clenched and his will fixed, was
proceeding to Damascus there to arrest and condemn
and have executed all who followed Christ.
And he's overshadowed by that bright light and
he hears a voice from the midst of
the light saying, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me?
Who art thou, one to be held in
awe and reverence and worship?
Who art thou, Lord?
For that's the meaning in that use of
it.
I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
Arise, stand upon thy feet, for I have
appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make
thee a minister and a witness to the
Gentiles, to open their eyes, to turn them
from darkness to light and from the power
of Satan unto God.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the
will of God.
Here you see at the very first words
of this epistle this introduction to a sovereign
God, a God who reigns, a God who
rules, a God who controls, a God who
directs, a God who's in charge, who's never
abdicated government, never relinquished the throne, never put
down the scepter of his authority.
There he is, an apostle by the will
of God.
To the saints which are at Ephesus, the
faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you
and peace from God our Father and from
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ,
according as he has chosen us in him
before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blame before him
in love, having predestinated us under the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will.
To the praise of the glory of his
grace.
Now, Ephesians begins with the doxology.
So does 2 Corinthians, so does 1 Peter.
But this is the most sublime, the most
complete, has the most profound insight, and therefore
it is probably to be viewed by us
as more than just a few verses, from
verse 3 through verse 14.
I will endeavor to bring to you the
next Lord's Day a setting forth of these
verses that will show you how they might
be viewed as a doxology, as a peon
of praise, as a hymn of worship.
For such it is.
That's what it is.
As I said, there's a profound insight here
that our salvation is the whole work of
God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Salvation is the work of God.
That's what this doxology tells us.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
The source of all blessing is God.
God the Father, who is also God the
Sovereign.
The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This means that he is the head of
all things.
All things are under him.
All spiritual blessings are from him, and all
time is overshadowed by his grace.
You've got to feel somehow what the Apostle
is saying to these poor, ignorant, virtually illiterate,
uneducated, Ephesian, Gentile converts, who are a few
months or at the most a few years
out of dreadful paganism, groveling before the shrine
of Diana in the most voluptuous, immoral, salacious
worship of which we have any record.
And they haven't had a great deal of
teaching.
A group of Ephesians, Jew, had met, a
group of Ephesians rather, had been at Jerusalem,
and the day of, or prior to actually,
they'd heard of John's baptism unto repentance.
They had heard of the one who was
to come.
Then they met Paul, and you'll recall he
was satisfied with the genuineness of their faith,
and they were baptized in the name of
the Lord Jesus.
He accepted them into that fellowship of the
saints.
Then he spent a bit of time with
them.
Later he said that he was with them
house to house, day by day, teaching repentance
toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ.
They'd had some teaching, but not a great
deal.
Nothing like you've been privileged to have.
They didn't have the Scripture in their language.
Scripture of the Old Testament was all in
Hebrew, and they wouldn't have known Hebrew, nor
would they have had any access to the
Old Testament teachings about Christ.
But here they are, a company of believers,
meeting together, worshiping together, serving together, and he's
addressing now a letter to them, and he
is saying, Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies
in Christ.
Human love, which they would have known, of
course, is but a faint glimpse or light
shadow of God's eternal love.
That's what he is telling them, that from
eternity past, God the Father has loved them,
and he's loved us.
That this love is from his heart.
It didn't have a beginning.
It won't have an ending.
As earthly parents provide good things for their
children, try to protect their children, try to
prepare their children to live fruitfully and effectively,
how much more does God infinitely prepare for
his children?
We deal with a father.
That's what he's telling them.
We're dealing with someone who has a father's
heart, a father's concern, a father's love.
He's a sovereign, he reigns, he rules, but
he's a father.
And how to join together the fact that
God is sovereign, and God is father, without
diminishing his sovereignty, without diluting his authority, and
still can be the God of all grace,
the author of our salvation.
The source, therefore, of all blessing, verse 3
discloses to us, is the Father.
Blessed be the God and Father who has
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the
heavenlies in Christ.
Understand that.
Now why?
Well, Paul is going to talk to them
about this God who is sovereign, but he
first wants them to understand that he's father.
You see, he's not teaching systematic theology.
He's introducing them to their father, telling them
about their father.
And because they understand his love, and they
understand his grace, and they understand his mercy,
and they understand the peace that he's brought
into their hearts, and into their lives, they're
not going to draw back when they discover
something else, like some child born into the
home of a king.
And all he knows, does that babe, as
he begins to become aware of those about
him, is that there's a certain person that
comes at a certain hour of the day,
and takes this little one in his hands,
and cuddles him, and plays with him, and
tickles him, and laughs, and coos at him,
and makes all the silly sounds that fathers
and grandfathers make toward little children.
And then he gets a little older, and
he discovers that when his father speaks, people
move.
And then sometime he comes in, and he
finds that his father's sitting above the others
on a very important-looking chair.
And then there comes a moment when he's
aware that his father is the king, and
has the power of life and death over
his subjects.
Now, he knows this king as father, but
he isn't any less king because he's father.
And so, we who once were the children
of the God of this world, who once
obeyed him, are now being taught by the
apostle that the one into whose family we
have been born, the one who has, by
his grace, washed us from our sin, and
removed that great weight of guilt and condemnation,
whom we have called Abba, Father, is none
other than the sovereign of the universe.
That's what he wants them to understand, and
that's what he wants us to understand.
So, the next verse, I'm going to skip
to the fifth verse, and we'll come back
in a moment to the fourth.
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the
good pleasure of his will, there's a sovereign
speaking, or the word spoken of by the
Holy Spirit concerning a sovereign.
We're in his family.
We're in his family according to the good
pleasure of his will.
But what is the teaching?
The rule of blessing is the good pleasure
of his will.
It is the good pleasure of his will
to bless all those who come to him
as he has prescribed and as he has
invited.
The sovereign God is the sovereign ruler of
all blessing.
Now, we view this from Earth with narrow,
bigoted little minds, and it may be troublesome
to think that someone is somewhere because someone
decided that that one should be somewhere can
be a little bit reprehensible to those of
us that have been so associated with democracy
that we do not hold to the divine
right of anything by birth or by the
choice of others.
We would like to think we live in
a world where only merit prevails and only
ability is recognized and honored.
Perhaps reaching the age that we have as
an average in the group, we may conclude
that there are often other factors that enter
into promotion and demotion other than just merit
alone, but be that as it may, there's
still something about us, in us, that says,
I don't particularly like the idea that somebody
has predestinated us under the adoption of children
to himself by the good pleasure of his
will.
Well, I can understand how, from this point
of view, that might have a problem or
two.
But as viewed from the heavenlies, blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in the heavenlies in Christ, viewed from
there, we can see the truth, we can
see the propriety of this arrangement.
And why?
Well, in heaven, everyone acquiesces to the Sovereign
Father's rule and government.
There isn't any challenge to it there.
The angels cover their faces and cry, Holy,
Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.
And there is, in heaven, no challenge to
his authority.
There once was, but the ones who challenged
were cast out.
And now, in heaven, there is no challenge
to his authority, and all acquiesce to it.
And since all he wills is good, those
who are in heaven are content to abide
by his rule.
And they find no problem with it.
But you see, on earth, we have another
situation.
Do you remember what it was that the
God of this world, the serpent Lucifer in
that form, said to our Mother Eve?
Yea, hath God said thou shalt not eat?
God knows that when you're going to do
this, you'll be as God.
And he doesn't want you to be as
God.
He's trying to rob you and to cheat
you.
This is good to eat, and it'll make
you wise.
See, God doesn't love you.
He's not on your side.
He's not interested in your happiness.
To the contrary, he's trying to take away
from you all that would make you happy.
You thought God loved you?
No.
In essence, he said God only loves himself,
and he's using you.
That was the argument.
So that's the atmosphere.
That's the atmosphere of the world in which
we live.
The God of this world has blinded the
minds of them that believe not, lest the
light of the gospel should shine unto them.
Now, there are some to whom the light
of the gospel has shined.
Who are they?
They're the ones that have been awakened by
the Spirit of God, convicted of their crime
of playing God, and usurping authority in their
lives, and turning to their own way.
And they have renounced that crime.
They've changed their mind about insisting on being
God in their own lives.
They've ceased their warfare against God.
And they've, in that repentance, that change of
mind, they have embraced God in the person
of Jesus Christ as the rightful ruler of
their life.
They've confessed him to be Lord, King, Sovereign,
Boss.
Having heretofore been Lord, King, Sovereign, Boss in
their own lives.
And by that renunciation of their crime of
sin, they have been pardoned from their past,
forgiven of their crimes, had a new heart,
a new spirit imparted by God's Spirit, and
have had certified to them that they have
been put into God's family because God the
Holy Spirit enables them to cry when thinking
of and addressing this one who is sovereign,
before whom a little while ago they may
have cringed in terror because of their crime.
Now they can cry, Abba, Father.
And what do they find?
Well, what happened?
All that the sinner knows is that he
saw himself.
All that the sinner knows is that he
hated what he saw.
All that he knows is that he renounced
what he hated.
He knows that he embraced the one that
was shown to him.
He knows that he did what was presented
to him to do, and as a result,
now, he also knows that he has been
born into the family of God and he
can call God Father.
So from the sinner's point of view, he
doesn't know anything at all about this having
been predestinated unto adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to himself.
All he knows is that what he saw,
he hated, namely his crimes against God.
And what he hated, he renounced.
And having renounced sin, he embraced Jesus Christ
as the sovereign of his life and the
one who died for his crimes.
And then he has this inner certainty, the
witness of the Spirit, that he's been born
of God.
That's all the sinner knows.
Because he's looking at it on an experiential
level.
He's seeing it now in terms of what's
happened to him.
But what does the third verse say?
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.
Now, looking down on it, looking down on
it, is what the apostle is doing.
He discovers that there's no
surprise in all of this, having predestinated us
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ
to himself, according to the good pleasure of
his will.
In other words, there's two aspects to it.
The area of responsibility of the sinner, doing
what he's supposed to do with what he's
seen about himself and about God, and then
the overview of God.
So what Paul is doing is taking these
decisions with him so that they can look
down on this whole experience and understand that
their God indeed is sovereign, that the rule
of blessing is the good pleasure of his
will.
God is so good that he cannot even
will anything that is not good.
Justice is willed by him because it is
good, and injustice is evil.
Vengeance in punishing sin is willed by him
because vengeance is better than impunity in respect
to the law.
And therefore, everything that God wills has to
come out of his character, out of all
that he is, and therefore, when they see
it in retrospect, afterward, as we are, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by
Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good
pleasure of his will.
Now, suppose someone were to truly be
convicted of his sin, truly repent, truly receive
Christ, whom God hadn't predestinated unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself.
Well, it isn't really a question.
It's not a question.
Because, you see, the essence of it is,
as the Lord Jesus said, all that the
Father has given me will come unto me,
and whosoever will may come.
So the essence isn't that somebody will come
whom he didn't adopt or see as one
that would come.
No.
Everyone who comes is welcome.
Outside this gate is whosoever will may come.
There it is.
A sovereign God said it.
A sovereign God declared it.
Whosoever will may come.
As I live, saith the Lord, I have
no pleasure in the death of the wicked,
but that the wicked turn and live, turn
ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?
So what has he done?
He has predestinated to be adopted as children
all who will come on his terms.
Now we come to another, come to another
element, another question.
And that is, did he choose who would
come?
Well, I have, we have six children, Marjorie
and I.
We know them pretty well.
We know our children well enough to know
that if we were to establish certain conditions,
certain children, certain of them would respond.
We just know how our children are made.
We don't know how it came about that
they were so much like us, but that's
the way they are.
We know them.
We know what they will do, what they
won't do.
Some are born, you know, some are born
in the negative mood, and some are born
like little grandsons, like Adam.
I say, if I, I'd never say, Adam,
come and sit on my lap and hug
me.
I'd say, Adam, you can't sit on my
lap or hug me.
And he's right over that.
I just know how he works.
He's put together that way.
Now, the moment that God, or when God
decided how people would be saved, okay, when
God determined the means of grace, he also
determined those who would be the recipients of
grace.
For instance, suppose that the plan of salvation,
other than what it is, had been that
an angel comes down and picks somebody up
by the scruff of the neck, takes them
up 5,000 feet, and says, if you
don't repent, I'm going to drop you.
No parachute.
Now, sensible people in that situation would do
something like repent.
I have a feeling.
There would be a whole different class of
people that responded to that kind of a
gospel presentation than the one that is.
In other words, the determination of the method
or the means determines the response.
I mean, you know how excited the disciples
were there in John 6 when the Lord
was with that group of people, and they
had that great multitude.
Want to make him king?
I can just hear the disciples saying, you
know, we've had, boy, it's been meager so
far.
We left that fishing business, but at least
we had something regular to eat.
If we couldn't sell our fish, we could
eat them.
But since we've been out here with him,
I thought we were going to get something
worthwhile.
And they said, well, look at that crowd.
Now, there's a couple of good offerings there,
I'll tell you.
So what's he do?
He tells them, he ends up by telling
them, you are your father the devil.
Well, that's not how to win friends and
influence a big offering.
I mean, you know, it's not how you're
going to get it done.
And they go away and leave him.
And as they drift off, he turns to
the disciples and said, are you going to
go?
And they said, Lord, we've been thinking about
it.
But the fact is, only you have the
words of eternal life.
We don't know where to go.
We're committed in this thing.
But you sure, that's a hard saying you
have.
You sure know how to lose an audience
in a hurry.
And the Lord Jesus said, look, I'm not
afraid I won't get them.
I'm afraid I'll get the wrong ones.
You see?
Because if I get that devil's crowd, what
in the world am I going to do
with it?
I can't nurture them in the admonition of
the Lord till they grow up into Christ
and all things under a perfect man.
That's not what they want.
So I get a bunch of them, what
am I going to do with them?
I'm not afraid of that.
I won't get them.
I'm afraid I will get the wrong ones.
And then I won't know what in the
world to do with them.
Previously he said, I'm going to war against
an enemy with 20,000.
I only got 10,000.
But I'll tell you one thing.
I'm going to be real careful who I
got for my 10,000 because he doesn't
care who he puts in his crowd.
I'm going to be real careful about those
who get in mine.
But we've forgotten all about that.
And we figured that the Lord didn't know
what he was doing.
The numbers were the thing.
And the more the better.
But that day when he had a crowd,
he wasn't trying to get them all in.
He was hoping he'd get them all out,
all those that would go.
Because he said, all that the Father has
given me will come to me.
When he left heaven, the Father said, Son,
you go and you say exactly what I
told you to say and all that I've
given you will come to you.
But if you say anything else, you're going
to get a crowd and even you won't
know what to do with them.
So he was awful careful to say just
what the Father told him to say.
Why?
Because what the Father told him to say
determined who would come.
You see?
That was the condition.
That was the screening.
That was the way by which he would
get them.
So what's the message?
Repent, said he.
Repent.
Throw down the arms of your warfare.
Climb down off that little false throne you've
built in your hearts and crawl up on
and thrust your fist in the face of
God and say, I'll do what I want
to do.
Get down.
Tell Jesus Christ from the day on he's
to be in charge.
He's to rule.
He's to govern.
He's to control.
Receive him as your Lord, to rule and
govern as king and sovereign and boss and
as your Savior who died, shed his blood,
pay for your mountainous mountain of crime.
Then that message, that message unto as many
as received him the way the Father said
he was to present it to them, and
only to them did he give the authority
to become the sons of God, even to
them that believe on his name.
So what we have then here is, yes,
having predestinated us under the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the
good pleasure of his will.
But what's the good pleasure of his will?
The message, the method of salvation.
That's how.
That's the way he chose.
It was his way as that message that
was to go out.
And every time we change it, we are
saying God is no longer sovereign.
We're sovereign.
We'll determine what the plan of salvation is
and what should be preached and how it
should be presented.
We aren't going to trust him anymore.
I was a few years ago down in
Memphis, and a man, a pastor said, when
I started we had about 100 people that
loved the Lord.
Then we had a big evangelist come in.
We got 300.
It got more difficult than last year.
I had another big evangelist come in.
We got 300 more.
We got 700 people, and even God himself
doesn't know what to do with them.
One more meeting like that and the church
is ruined.
What was he saying?
He was saying he had evangelists who made
their living by the result of results, numbers.
And so they had altered the message to
such a way that people could get in
who had never met the condition so clearly
established in the Word of God.
So, having predestinated us unto the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ to himself according to
the good pleasure of his will, the Father
told the Son what to say, and the
Son told us what to say.
And that's the whole essence of it, that
we do what the Father said because it's
the good pleasure of his will.
Now verse 4.
According as he hath chosen us in him
before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blame before him
in love.
The Father planned this blessing of his adopted
children before the foundation of the world.
Before the world began, the Father made this
full and complete and perfect plan.
Everything starts from the sovereignty of God as
the rule of all blessing.
Now, the blessing of his adopted children was
deliberately planned from eternity past, before the foundation
of the world.
What was this blessing of his children?
That they should glorify him.
How would they glorify him?
These who had by the fall been made
in the image and likeness of their father
the devil, such were you, such was I.
Now, because God in his grace has made
this perfect plan of salvation, we're to come
back to him on his terms, his conditions,
that we might be holy and without blame
before him in love.
Before the foundation of the world, the Father
decided that.
Now, who are we to change it?
Who are we to alter it?
Who are we to say something other than
what the Father said?
Can't do it.
What would you think of an earthly father
who raises his children to be thugs and
criminals?
To live in lawlessness.
What would you think of a heavenly father
that has a plan of salvation, that lets
people go on after they've professed to be
bought out of death and into life and
into relation, who go on living the same
kind of lives they did when they were
under the God of this world and controlled
by him?
What would you think of such a father?
Why you'd say he's reprehensible, he's a beast,
if he trains his children to be thugs
and criminals?
What would you think of a heavenly father
that has a family, that he's gathering together,
where he has no intention while they're alive
in time to do anything about their character,
but sometime when they die, it's all going
to happen in an instant, between now and
then they can go on living as though
they were still the children of the dead.
What would you think of such a father?
I remember years ago, I had a copy
of, I don't have it anymore, maybe it
was borrowed then, of the Sovereign Grace Conference
at Park Street Church in London, of which
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the pastor.
Park Street preceded the Metropolitan Tabernacle, which was
the great center of Spurgeon's ministry, seated 5
,000 people.
But there at Park Street, in the introductory
remarks, it was the Sovereign Grace Conference, he
said, we are dealing with the subject of
election, he said, there are those in London
and in other parts of Britain who have
been so rash as to say that we,
who hold to the teachings of the scripture
in regard to the sovereignty of our God,
teach that men can receive Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior and continue to live in
sin.
I declare to you today, and I wish
the reporters from the London and the country
papers to take this down and publish it
widely, anyone who says that Charles Spurgeon or
those who fellowship with him in this Sovereign
Grace Fellowship believe that a person can receive
Jesus Christ and continue to live in sin,
anyone I say who so affirms that we
believe is either criminal or crazy, nor I
will enlarge it, said he, anyone who so
teaches, be he here elsewhere, that one can
have partaken of the election unto holiness and
continue to live in known sin deliberately is
either criminal or crazy.
This is an election unto holiness and not
escape from justice.
So what do we see here?
He hath chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world.
For what?
That we should be holy and without blame
before him in love.
That's what he's chosen.
Then as the God of all grace, he
is going to provide everything necessary for us
to be everything he purposed.
Do you see?
Now we're talking about the sovereignty of God
in relation to the salvation of men.
Yes, it's an election to holiness and blamelessness
before him in love.
Holiness is the end aimed at in his
love.
When this is lost sight of, confusion reigns.
As long as a professor of religion, as
long as one who claims to be a
Christian, loves sin and hates holiness and righteousness
and godliness of life, he has no warrant
to affirm faith in Christ.
Men are not called because they are holy.
Men are not drawn because they are holy.
God came to call not the righteous but
sinners to repentance.
It is a call to become holy, to
repent.
The essence of sin is I'll do what
I want to do.
The essence of change is Lord, what do
you want me to do?
So we get to the essence, the edge
of it then.
What is it?
Well, the Lord knoweth them that are his
and let every one that nameth the name
of Christ depart from iniquity.
It's so important, therefore, for us to realize
that he's predestinated us to adoption through Jesus
Christ according to the good pleasure of his
will.
Now in verse 6, just in closing, why?
That we might be to the praise of
the glory of his grace.
That's what it's all about.
This sovereign God, before the foundation of the
world, prepared and planned and provided a salvation
that would have as its end result that
we should be to the praise of the
glory of his grace.
Now we begin to see how the sovereignty
of God is taught not in systematic theology,
but when the apostle is writing to a
company of redeemed people, Gentile believers up in
a little place called Ephesus.
And I think he's also saying something to
us in a little place called Bethesda in
Maryland.
And he's telling us that we are to
be to the praise of the glory of
his grace.
Shall we then turn our hearts in prayer?
How grateful we are to thee, our Father,
that thou and thy great grace and sovereign
love are still calling men out of death
into life and out of rebellion.
We would ask thee that somehow we might
recognize that that call has been effectual and
true in our own hearts and lives.
That we do indeed with all there is
in us long to please thee and honor
thee and to glorify thee in everything.
That we might in every way and in
everything do only that, say, think only that,
which will glorify thee.
So to that end, Father, we would give
ourselves afresh to thee today.
And we pray for in this land of
ours, in this world of which we're a
part, with so many voices, so many different
accents and emphases, that we might again hear
that sweet, simple, clarion message of the Lord
Jesus Christ sounded to our day and to
our generation.
Repentance toward God, faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ, that will result in men indeed being
brought out of death into life and brought
out of rebellion into submission, brought out of
uncleanness into holiness.
Lord God of grace, bless us to that
end ourselves before thee now.
In Jesus' name.