Let's turn now back to Ephesians
1. Let's read these verses 3 through
6 again. And remember, this is God the
Father, the work that God the Father did before the foundation
of the world. Let's read this together. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, that Margin
says in Heavenly Things, in Christ, 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, having predestinated
us unto 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. And then here is our text. Wherein,
in all of these things that He did before the foundation of
the world, wherein, He, God the Father, hath made us, His elect,
those He chose in Christ, accepted in the Beloved. wherein He hath
made us accepted in the Beloved." Now, we want assurance that we're
accepted of God. That's what a believer wants.
You and I who've been called by His grace want assurance. We want to know we've been accepted
of God. Well, we do something very foolish
a lot of times. We know we shouldn't do this.
And if we're honest though, we'll admit we all do this. We start
to look to ourself to try to find some assurance by something
we've done and something that we have done. We'll start looking
to our conduct since we believed. See how our conduct has been
since we believed. Or we'll start looking to how
we've handled this trial or that trial. Thinking about, you know,
were we spiritually minded in that. Try to get some assurance
from that. Or we'll start trying to think about how warm our affections
are toward Christ. And when we do that, because
we're the children of God the Father, everybody who's His child
truly, He's not going to allow us to find assurance. in something
we've done. They're not going to allow us
to start finding assurance in ourselves. And so we start looking
at ourselves and we start finding things that makes us very discouraged. We start seeing things about
ourselves that makes us realize There's no assurance there. I
can't find assurance in that. Surely by now we'd get the picture
that our flesh is not getting better. We're not going to find
assurance in our flesh. It's just not going to be. But
we do that. We tend to do that. So tonight
I want to show you where every believer can find full assurance
of our acceptance with God. Where that full assurance is
to be found. It's in the goodness and the
grace of God our Father given to His elect before the foundation
of the world. Paul said in Romans, it's the
goodness of God that leads men to repentance. And when we see
this, what I want you to see tonight, I want you to just be
so overwhelmed with the goodness of God the Father toward His
elect before He ever made anything. see His goodness in what He did
before He made anything so that it'll lead us to repentance. It'll lead us from looking to
ourselves and turn us and just cause us to look to Him and Him
alone. Look at verse 6 again, end of
verse 6, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. Now these first verses here,
verses 3 through 6, tell us what God the Father did before the
foundation of the world, before the foundation of the world.
And we've looked at these verses in detail because they're so
honoring to God our Father and they're so comforting to the
believer. And we just try to go through them and take every
little phrase and look at these things word by word. Now this
last phrase in verse 6 tells us what the Father did by all
of these things that we've looked at up to this point. This is
what He did in all these things He did. Verse 6 says, wherein
He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. The He is God our Father,
the Us are His elect, you and I who's been chosen by His grace,
called by His grace. The Beloved is the Son of God,
Christ Jesus. And here's the point, and nothing's
going to settle us and give us assurance like this right here.
Here's the point. Before making the world, God
the Father made each of His elect eternally and separably one with
Christ. and accepted us in the Beloved. He accepted us. Alright, here's
the first thing we see. Something done. Something done. Verse 6, He hath made us accepted. It's done. He hath done it. Now
remember this verse is speaking of what was done before the foundation
of the world. We're talking about God the Father
here. What He did. Verse 7 speaks of redemption
that we now have by Christ. It says, in whom we have redemption
through his blood. Verses 8 and 9 speaks of revelation
that the believer now has. Verse 9 says, having made known
unto us the mystery of his will. But verses 3 through 6 declares
what God the Father did before the foundation of the world.
And so this is what he did in that work by his grace, wherein
he hath made us accepted in the beloved. I believe it because
God says it. I believe it because it's what
God says here. This is what he says about himself. Now believer, you and I, as well
as every other black child that shall be called, we were made
accepted in Christ before God made anything else. God the Father
made us accepted in Him before He ever made the world. God the
Father blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ. God the
Father chose us in Christ. God the Father predestinated
us to obtain the glory of that Sonship. that He gave us when
He put us in Christ and chose us in Christ, that glory of children,
that adoption of children, wherein, in all of this, before the foundation
of the world, He hath made us accepted in the Beloved in Jesus
Christ. This was something done in eternity
which can never be undone in time. This was This was done
before Adam sinned and before we sinned in Adam. This was done
before Adam was made and before we came forth made. This was not something done by
us. It was not something done because
of anything in us. From eternity, He accepted us
as holy in His Holy Son before we became unholy. He accepted
us as righteous in His righteous Son before we broke the law and
became unrighteous. This is what the text is telling
us. From eternity, this is what the Father did. Let me read a
verse to you from Ecclesiastes 3.14. Listen to this. I know
that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can
be put to it, nor anything taken from it. And God doeth it that
men should fear before Him." Now, God our Father did this
before the foundation of the world that we should fear before
Him. It's the goodness of God that's
going to lead sinners to repentance. He did this before the foundation
of the world that we should fear before Him. Not fear men, not
fear ourselves, not fear bondage, not fear death, not fear hell,
not fear all these things that we fear, but that we should fear
Him. It means that we should bow in
submission to Him, bow in humble faith, bow in simple trust, bow
believing Him and what He said He's done for us Himself. in Christ the Beloved. It's to
fear Him that what God has done shall be forever. It's to fear
Him in that nothing can be added to what God's done and nothing
can be taken from what God's done. It's to fear Him in that
He's done this to bring us to simply trust He's the one of
whom our salvation is. Salvation is of the Lord. I pray
for you here. I pray for each and every one
of you here all the time. And I'm not kidding about that.
I really do. And here's what I'm praying for.
I'm praying that the eyes of our understanding be enlightened.
praying that we could see just how ordered God the Father has
ordered our salvation, just how sure He has made sure our salvation,
and just that we would be just overwhelmed with His goodness
toward us before He ever even made anything. That's what I
want for us to see. I want us to know it. I want us to know it more fully.
I want us to be sure in what God has done so that we don't
look to the work of our hands, we don't become cast down by
our sins and these things, so that truly we're turned from
ourselves and our sins and everything that would separate us from God
to truly follow our God. This is what I'm praying for.
This is what I want for you and for me in this place. I know
this, we won't have this peace. We won't have this assurance
looking anywhere else. We're not gonna have it anywhere
else, but in the one who makes it sure. Okay, so the first thing
we see, this was done in eternity. All right, here's the second
thing. We see what God the Father has made us. Verse 6 says, accepted. He's made us accepted. Now, if
you think the last point was good, wait until you hear what
this means. We're not going to be long here,
but there's some good stuff in this. Accepted, the word from
which accepted is translated. That word means graced, highly
favored, worthy of praise." Now listen
to that. He's made us favored and worthy
of praise in the Beloved. Before the foundation of the
world, in the Beloved, in Christ, God the Father made each and
every elect child to be his favorite, to be his child of his love and
his delight. He did that in Christ. He did that. Each elect child
is the favorite of God, our Father, like Christ is the favorite of
God. Christ said in John 17, 23, thou
hast loved them as thou hast loved me. God the Father considers each
elect child as worthy of His praise as Christ, His Son, is
worthy of His praise. That's right. That's what accepted
means. It means that from eternity,
in Christ, we were holy and without blame before Him in love. In God's eternal purpose, in
His fixed decree, in His grace, we were holy and without blame
before Him in love. It means that before the Father,
because of Christ Jesus, before the Father, this is what our
salvation means. We came forth from our mother's
womb, holy and without blame, perfect, pure, spotless, without
a blemish in us, from our mother's womb. And we've honored and magnified
God's law in everything we've done all the days of our life,
believing Him and loving Him perfectly, as well as loving
our brethren perfectly. Our person, and our character,
and our motives are all consistently, perfectly one with God our Father,
and therefore He considers us worthy of His praise. I can just
hear somebody now that's hearing me say this. That man believes
in absolute perfection. He's blaspheming God. The word
accepted means graced, highly favored, worthy of praise. That's what it means. But how
can all these things be true of me? I didn't come from my
mother's womb holy and without blame. I came from my mother's
womb corrupt and polluted and defiled in my sin. I've never
honored his law a day in my life. I've never perfectly loved my
brethren and loved God and perfectly believed God a day in my life. And that's what's required. I've
never done it. I've never in my character and
my motives, I've never done anything in perfection, ever. So how can
all that be said of me? How can it be said that from
before the foundation of the world, I've been accepted of
God." That's what it means. It doesn't just mean just that
He receives you, although He does receive us. It means worthy
of praise as much as His own Son is worthy of praise. How
can that be? Well, here's the third thing.
We are accepted because of an inseparable union that God the
Father made for us in eternity. Verse 6 says, He hath made us
accepted. Now get these next three words.
In the Beloved. In the Beloved. The acceptance of our persons
by God the Father is not because of anything in us. But it's because
of everything in the Beloved, in the Beloved, in Christ Jesus. Now, our great Savior has a lot
of titles in this book. He's got a lot of titles. But
this title right here, I love this one. This title is a title
of love and it's a title of unity. It's a title of love and unity.
Whenever God the Father put His elect in His Son, according as
He chose us in His Son. Remember, we saw He blessed us
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
All of them, according as He chose us in Him. That's the fountainhead
blessing. He put us in Christ, and right
there with that electing grace, that's where all the blessings
spring from. Right there. Right there. When
He did that, brethren, He saw us, what He put upon us, by putting
us in Christ, He put upon us the beauty of the Beloved. And
He saw us in the beauty of the Beloved, and therefore God the
Father accepted us in the Beloved. Now everything I said about the
way God sees us and accepts us, that's so, because that's so
of Christ. Those things can all be said
of Christ. And He accepts us, accepts us in the Beloved. Let
me read, if you want to turn there, Ezekiel 16. This is how
it's put there. And this is a very good, this
will give you an understanding of what we're talking about.
Ezekiel 16, 14. Thy renown, this is true of all
His elect. Thy renown went forth among the
heathen for Thy beauty. For it was perfect through My
comeliness, which I had put upon Thee, saith the Lord God. That's
what we're talking about He did in eternity. the renown went
forth for our beauty. And it was perfect, not because
of us, but because of His comeliness which He put upon us. Christ
is the Beloved in heaven and He is the Beloved in earth. Look
back over here at Ephesians 1 and look at verse 10. It speaks there
of Him gathering together in one all things in Christ, both
which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in Him. He's
the Beloved to those in heaven and in earth. He's the Beloved.
We have a joke in my family, a running joke in my family.
My sister has always called me, well, not always, but about,
I don't know, 20 years ago or so, she started calling me the
golden child. And that's what she's always
called me, the golden child. And the reason she does this
is because I was the first son, I was the first grandson on both
sides of the family. And on one side of the family,
I was the first great, great grandson. So for a long time,
I was the golden child in the family. Everybody on all sides
was talking about me. Christ is the golden child. He's
the beloved of those in heaven and those in earth. Christ is. He's beloved in heaven of God
the Father and God the Holy Spirit. The three in one in heaven. They're
in love and in unity, and Christ the Son is the centerpiece of
that love and the centerpiece of that unity in God's purpose
and covenant of grace. He said in Proverbs 8, 22, the
Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way before His works of
old. I was set up from everlasting,
from the beginning, wherever the earth was. And then when
He made all things, Christ was there, making all things with
Him. And then it says, then I was
by Him as one brought up with Him. I was daily His delight. That's who Christ is. Rejoicing
always before Him, rejoicing in the habitable part of His
earth, and my delights were with the sons of men. He's the delight
of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. And then in heaven,
Christ is the delight of the angels, the beloved, Christ the
beloved is the light of the angels. Isaiah saw, saw, uh, saw that
vision in the year that King Uzziah died, and he saw the throne
and Christ seated upon his throne. And he said, above it stood the
seraphims. Each one had six wings, and with
two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and
with two he flew. And one cried to another and
said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth
is full of his glory. He's the beloved of angels in
heaven. And then in heaven and on earth
with those saints that already gone to heaven and the saints
he's called in earth. He's the beloved of the saints
in earth. We sing, I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He's
the beloved. So you see all eyes on Christ. He's the beloved. And this was
God's purpose. This was his delight from the
beginning, that Christ have all preeminence, that his son have
all preeminence in all things. And so in eternity, as God the
Father's chosen mediator, God the Father put all this glory
upon Him. He chose Him. And at the top
page of the Lamb's Book of Life, He wrote His name first. His name's there. Because He's
the first elect of God. He's the preeminent elect child
of God. And God put all this glory on
the Beloved. And He accepted Him. Right then,
He accepted him as the mediator, as the God-man mediator. He accepted
him. Remember in John 17, He said,
Glorify me with thine own self, with the glory that I had with
you from before the foundation of the world. Well, He had all
glory with Him as God the Son. He's talking about that glory
He had with Him as the God-man mediator. He wasn't a man then. He wasn't incarnate then. I'm
talking about just His mediatorial office. He had all this glory
put upon Him right then in Heaven. And he was accepted because he's
one with God the Father. He's one with Him. He was accepted
of Him. Remember what accepted means?
It means to be graced. It means to be highly favored.
It means to be worthy of praise. That's who He is, the Beloved.
In His person, the Beloved is one with God the Father and one
with God the Holy Spirit. He's one with Him, accepted of
God. God the Son is God Himself. And
when He came forth into this earth and took human flesh, He's
Emmanuel, God with us. the Son of the Highest. He's
a wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace, the fullness of the Godhead bodily. This is
who Christ is. So in His person, in His person,
right there in eternity before the foundation of the world,
when the Father chose Him, He accepted Him because He's one
with the Father. And He accepted all of the elect
He put in Him. The same way. Because in Him,
He's made us one with God. One with Him. One with Him. One in Him. Alright? God is perfect
and pure. He's pure and perfect. So anybody
that's going to be accepted of Him has to be perfect and pure
as God. Gotta be. Well, from eternity,
Christ is the holy high priest. He's that one from eternity who's
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. Right there in
eternity with God the Father from before the foundation of
the world. When He came into this earth and walked this earth,
He knew no sin. He said, the Prince of this world
cometh, but He hath nothing in Me. Therefore, in eternity, God
accepted Him because He's pure and He's perfect. He's holy.
And He accepted all of His elect in Him, pure and perfect as Him. Remember what accepted means?
Worthy of praise. God is love. God is love. In order to be accepted of God,
one must be love and one must love perfectly. What's God be? Well, right there in eternity,
Christ is love. He's love. His motives for entering
into that everlasting covenant to come forth and to honor the
Father and to save His children was love. The love of His Father
and the love of His people. Love made Him willing to be made
of a woman. Love made him willing to be made
under the law. Love made him willing to be made
sin for his people. Love made his life perfect. His life was perfect. Christ
was love laying down his life for his brethren. That's who
he is. Though he was rich, yet for our
sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be
made rich. Love made him empty himself for those who had no
love to him. Love made him give his back to
the smiters for them that just neglect to even give him thanks. Now seated in glory, he still
loves, and he loves perfectly. And in Christ is the perfection
of God's love for His people. That's where it's seen, is in
Christ. God is love and Christ is the fullness of that love.
And God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. What do you think He's going
to do for us now that we're reconciled and friends by His life? What do you think He's going
to do for us? Well, right there in eternity, there's love, there's
Christ who is as perfect love as the Father, one with Him in
love. And so He was accepted right
then, worthy of all praise for this perfect love that He had. And all of the elect of God were
accepted in Him with as perfect a love in them as in Him, adorned
with that beauty. Well, God the Father is faithful. He's faithful. In order to be
accepted of God, one must be perfectly faithful as God is
faithful. You have to be perfectly faithful. Well, in eternity, Christ was
pure faithfulness. We know that God's omniscient.
That means God can see. He knows the end from the beginning. But even if He didn't see the
end from the beginning, He didn't have to. When Christ merely agreed
and gave His Word to fulfill the everlasting covenant, that's
all He needed was His Word because He's faithful. He's faithful. He can be trusted. And so He
came forth. He's the faithful witness. That's
what He's called in Revelation 1. the faithful witness. He's the faithful witness of
God's righteousness. Even the righteousness of God
which is manifest by the faith of Christ. He's the one who manifests
it. In this earth, Satan tried to
bribe Him, promising Him to give Him all the kingdoms of this
world, but He stayed faithful to God. He stayed faithful to
His purpose for which He came. He couldn't be turned from the
integrity and fidelity of His heart to His Father. Men tried
to scare Him and men tried to threaten Him and do all these
things to turn Him from His purpose. We get turned by the fear of
men so easily. We're going to look at that Sunday,
Lord willing. We get turned so easily by the fear of men. He
didn't turn Him because He's faithful, perfectly faithful. He never wavered one iota from
faithfulness. He believed the Father's promise
to Him. Every word the Father promised
to Him. He believed the Father that all those the Father had
gave to Him would come to Him because the Father would draw
Him. So He went forth through this earth preaching the words
the Father gave Him to priests because He trusted the Father
would draw them to Him. That's right. I see in Him faithfulness. He believed the Father's Word
that when He went to that cross and was made sin for His people
and laid down His life for His people, that the Father would
raise Him and justify Him before all. declaring Him to be the
Son of God with power. He believed the Father. He trusted
the Father. He's faithful. He believed Him
in faith. He trusted the Father as He did
that. And He's one in faithfulness
with the faithful God and Father. And therefore, Christ was accepted,
perfectly faithful as God the Father is faithful, accepted
before the world began. right then, and all of his people
in him were accepted as perfectly faithful in him. Our faith's
not perfect, but it's not the quality of our faith or the quantity
of our faith that saves us. It's the object of our faith
that saves us, and his faithfulness is perfect faithfulness. So we
don't get assurance in looking at our faith. We get assurance
by looking at the object of our faith. That's where, when we
examine ourselves whether we be in the faith, we're looking
to Him. That's where we're looking. Examine
ourselves to see where we're looking. Where are you looking?
Gotta be looking to Him. God's just and right. He loves
righteousness and He loves justice. To be accepted of the Father,
you gotta be perfectly just and perfectly righteous. Well, Christ
is the righteous and just Savior. Right there in eternity, He agreed
in eternity to satisfy justice, to magnify and honor the righteousness
of God, the righteousness of His law, because He loves righteousness
and justice. That's who He is, the righteous
and just Savior. When He struck hands and became
the surety for His people, He became the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. It was done in the mind and purpose
of God because He can't lie. He loves righteousness and He
loves justice and He wouldn't strike hands to go and satisfy
righteousness and justice and do it in unrighteousness. Everything
he does is righteous and just. And so when he came forth, he
honored and magnified God's holy law because he loves righteousness
and he loves justice. He vindicated the justice of
God by no means clearing the guilty, even when he was the
one with the sin of his people upon himself, standing before
God the just judge, the guilty one. Even then, he would by no
means clear the guilty. This is our Savior. This is who
we're talking about. Now a motive that high a motive
that right and a motive that just, demand for God to receive
him in infinite satisfaction and accept him. And God the Father
accepted our Mediator when He was for the foundation of the
world. And He accepted all of the elect
in Him as just and righteous in Him, both by what He would
do in putting away our sin and making us righteous, but also
in Him who is our righteousness. That's right. We could go on
and on and on in this, because in Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. We could just keep on talking
about the perfections of the Father, showing how that our
Mediator was one with Him in all those perfections. And therefore,
God the Father accepted Him. And that's why He accepted us
in Him. But there's only one word we
have to say that'll suffice for it all. The Beloved. The Beloved. That's what we're talking about
when we say the Beloved. Christ the Beloved. It's all
this oneness that He has with the Father. That's why He's beloved
of the Father. He's one with Him in all regards.
And He accepted us. He loves His elect. He praises
His elect. He delights in His elect because
He sees us in Christ adorned in the perfections of the Beloved,
brethren. This is for the foundation of
the world. Now, let's talk just a minute
about this union. About this union. This union
that He's made can't be broken. It can't be broken. It's a union
of election. It's according as He chose us
in Him before the foundation of the world. God the Father
first trusted Christ. God the Father, He put all the I don't know how to say it, I
don't want to bring dishonor to the father, but he put all his eggs
in one basket. He trusted Christ the son to
do it. That's what he did. And put it
all in him and trusted it all to his hand. And He calls us
to do the same thing. Trust all into His hand. Trust
Him. And so this selection of grace
demands that this union never be broken. Christ has, is, and
shall fulfill everything God the Father put into His hands
to do. Because God the Father first chose Him. He put that
honor upon Him. He chose Him. And He chose this
number, this multitude no man can number, and put in Him and
He trusted His Son with them. And then it's a union, a legal
union, a legal union of suretyship. It means that whenever Christ
came forth, He was accepted of the Father to do this work for
the Father, and He struck hands with the Father in agreement
that He would do the work. And when He did, He became the
surety for His people from the foundation of the world. didn't
look to the elect anymore. The law looked to Him. God the Father didn't look to
those elect children. He looked to His Son. And the
law looked to His Son. All looked to Him to fulfill
it. And He came forth and fulfilled
everything that He said He would do and put away the sin of His
people completely by His one offering. This union is a mysterious
union, a mystical union. We are inseparably one with Him. Have been since before the foundation
of the world. Look at Ephesians 5. Look at
verse 30. We are members of His body, of
His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the church. the marriage or the union of
a husband and a wife. That's the other thing to say. It's a marriage union. It's a
marriage union. And that union of a husband and
a wife, that union was made after the pattern of Christ and His
bride. God made Adam bride in Eve as
a figure and a type of this marriage that he had already made before
the world began. He had espoused all these elect
as the bride, the church, to his son. And that when he made
Eve, it was a picture of that. It was a picture of that union.
So whenever Adam, the first word, the first law that God the Father
gave to Adam was a marriage law. It was a marriage covenant. Love
this woman. And so whenever he saw her in
the transgression and he saw her having been beguiled by Satan,
he obeyed the Father and he took of the fruit with her in love. And that was a figure, Paul tells
us in Romans 5. It was a picture of what was
to come. Adam was not without excuse for
what he did, but that was a picture of something to come. And the
picture was this, Christ Jesus the Lord, who before the world
began had this bride espoused to him, sees this bride turn
to her whoredoms, and sees this bride has committed adultery,
and sees this bride who's fallen in sin and pollution. And in
order to save that bride, the only way he can save that bride
and fulfill that marriage covenant is this, go forth and be made
under the law and to be made a curse for her and to bear all
her punishment in His own body and deliver her out from under
that. And He did that. And Romans 7
tells us that now that He did that, we're not married to the
law anymore. The law is dead to us and we're
dead to the law. It's not the letter written in
stone that is our law. Our law is a marriage union with
Christ. We're under the law of Christ
our husband. And we serve him just like a bride serves her
husband. Not because she's got a piece of paper somewhere stuck
in a drawer that says she's legally married to him. but because she
loves him, and she wants to serve him, and she wants to honor him,
and she follows him, and does what he gives her to do, and
she's a help meet fit, a help that's fit for him, because he's
made herself. That's this union we have, and
this union is a, but I'm talking about this mystical union. We're
the branches, he's divine. We're the body, He's the head.
Levi was in the loins of Abraham when he met Melchizedek. We've
been in the loins of Christ from before the foundation of the
world. So that when He came forth, what He did, His people did.
Everything that He, when He obeyed, His people obeyed. When He laid
down His life, His people laid down their life. When He died,
we died. When He rose again, we rose again. We were in Him,
in His loins, one with Him, so that what He did, we did. And
we have a greater union with Christ than the members of your
body have with the members of your own physical body. They
can be cut off. Your head can be severed from
your body. Not a member, this head and his
body can't be severed from one another. And not a member of
his body can be severed from his body. It's a union that can
never be separated whatsoever. We've been spared, protected,
converted, justified, and accepted solely and entirely by virtue
of our eternal union with Christ. That's what we're talking about.
And then it's a union that makes it necessary for Him and for
us. Without this union, we couldn't
be saved. We've got to be in union with
Him to be saved. And without this union, without
Him bringing all of His children to us, His body won't be complete. So this union makes it vital
that all of these things that He promised the Father be fulfilled.
Look at Ephesians 1 and verse 23. His church is His body, the fullness
of Him that filleth all in all. That scripture that Scott just
read, it said that... Where was it, Scott? Ephesians
3? It says that we've been... What
did you just read? Ephesians 4? Look here at Ephesians
4, verse 13. It says, in the unity of the faith and
of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." You
see that? So this body, each of these members in particular,
each of these elect children, they're his body. And his body
won't be complete until they've all been brought in to the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Until each one's brought
in, that body won't be complete. And so that's why you read in
1st Peter, 2nd Peter, at the end of the epistle when he says
he's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance. He's not willing, brethren, that
any one of these children, members of his body, perish or his body
won't be complete. So they're all going to be saved. So you see there, it's an election
union. It's a, what'd I say? It's an
election union. It's a suretyship union, a legal
suretyship union. It's a mystical union. It's a marriage union. And it's
this vital union, this union that necessitates Him saving
us and us being in Him. So here's the point. Here's what
I want you to take home with you. If God's given you faith
in Christ, if He's called you, given you faith in Christ, then
know that our assurance is that He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. That's our assurance. He hath
done this. When Paul says there in chapter
3 that he desires for you to be able to comprehend the breadth
and the length and the depth and the height of God's love,
what he's telling us here in verse 6, saying that this was
done before the world began, he's telling us, brethren, that
the measure of God's love is beyond the dimensions of time. It's eternal. It's from everlasting
to everlasting. Our Holy God and Heavenly Father
has embraced us with unchangeable love and satisfaction from everlasting
to everlasting. So always remember this, we're
no longer individuals. We're not. We're not separate. We're not able to stand on our
own. We are one with Christ. Abide in Him. He said, Abide
in Me. Abide in Me. In Christ, God doesn't
deal with His saints as individuals. He deals with us as accepted
in the Beloved. He deals with us as His own Son. I like this. Spurgeon said, You
cannot drown a man's foot unless you drown his head. And if our head's in heaven,
we're safe. He's our head, and He's there. You see what I'm
saying? We've got eternal security in
Him. We've got eternal security in
Him. He's our head. So in Christ,
we're safe and secure from all harm. And here's something else
about it too. Even our whole lives, our worship,
our feeble service and sacrifice to God is all accepted in the
Beloved. Everything. When Paul said, I
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service. It's holy and acceptable
unto God because of Christ the Beloved. Christ the Beloved.
Whatever is done with a single eye to God's glory is washed
and perfumed in Christ's perfection so that all is accepted of God
the Father in the Beloved. When you get up in the morning
and you pray to the Lord, it's accepted in Christ the Beloved.
When you're driving to work and you're on your commute, you pop
in a CD and you're listening to a sermon, and you're trying
to worship the Father, even on your way to work, it's accepted
of the Father in the Beloved. When you're at work and you work
a full day's work as unto the Lord, it's accepted in the Beloved. Whenever you speak a word to
a co-worker and you're trying to speak a word about what Christ
has done for you, that service is accepted in the beloved. Whenever
you're at home and you're doing all your household chores that
you have to do, ladies, even loading a load of dirty clothes
in the washer, in the Lord, as unto the Lord. You see your husband in that
relationship is a picture of Christ and your relationship
to Him and to your children. It's done. It's accepted in the
Beloved as service to Him. As service to Him. Whenever you
sit down at your dinner table and you gather together to eat
and you thank the Lord, thinking of and remembering that He's
the bread from heaven, that prayer is accepted in the Beloved. Whenever
you sit down afterwards with your children and you try to
read the Scriptures to them, you think of preaching, sitting
here preaching, preaching to this many people. It's just as
much accepted in the Lord sitting down with one small little child
and teaching them the Gospel in your living room. It's accepted
in the Beloved. When you get finished with everything,
you finally get to go back and lay down at night, and again,
you thank Him for the whole day, and for what He's given you,
and for blessing you so as He's done it, and giving you that
heart to think of Him throughout the day. That's accepted in the
Beloved. See what I'm saying? We think
of serving the Lord as these big things and these big things
connected. And those things like that, we
think of those things as those everyday mundane things that
we have to do. And we sometimes wish that we
didn't have to do those things so that we could really serve
the Lord. That's serving the Lord. Whatsoever is done with
an eye to Him for His glory is as unto the Lord, and it's acceptable
in the Beloved. So it's all washed to perfection
by Him. And that's the way it's been
from before the world began. That's how it's going to be for
His people to the end, brethren. So what I'm saying to you, this
is our assurance. He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. He has. Amen.