Would you like to turn your Bibles
to the book of 1 Peter? We're going to read the first
nine verses. First nine verses, and we're
going to focus on just the first part of verse two. I thought
to cover the three things in verse two, but I realized in
studying this, we won't be able to cover all of them. We'll just
cover the first part. The title of this message is
Foreknowledge, The Foreknowledge of God. which is what the words
used in verse two. But let's read these first nine
verses together. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ
to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father. Through sanctification of the
Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,
grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. to an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven
for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto
salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. wherein you
greatly rejoice, though now, for a season if need be, you
are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of
your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth,
though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and
honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. whom, having
not seen, you love. In whom, though now you see him
not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation
of your souls. You can see that these first
nine verses in this chapter are about God's saving work. Do you
see that? God's saving work. And it begins
here in verse two with these words, elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father. And so I want to understand from
scripture this word foreknowledge. It means to know before. That's
very simple, isn't it? For knowledge means to know before. In fact, there is a word that
we use, I've always thought of it as a term in medicine called
prognosis, and that's what the words, the underlying word here
is, is prognosis. G-N-O-S-I-S is know, to know,
and P-R-O means before, so it's to know before. And God's knowledge,
it says here, is a knowledge that came before. Foreknowledge
means something that happened before. And I think perhaps the
easiest text of scripture to understand what this word means
is in Acts chapter 15. You wanna turn to Acts chapter
15. We'll see what foreknowledge
means from this one verse of scripture. But not the full meaning
of it. We'll see how that works out
in a minute. It says in Acts 15 that the people
were gathered together and they were having an argument about
how God saves sinners. And the apostles had drawn the
argument to a conclusion. Peter had said in verse 9 that
God put no difference between us, those that God had saved
out of the Jews, and them, the Gentiles, purifying their hearts
by faith. And then he said in verse 10,
now therefore why do you tempt God to put a yoke upon the neck
of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able
to bear, but we believe, here's his answer, we believe that through
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they. So those apostles were what we
would think of as great men. Great because Jesus Christ had
chosen them and sent them out to preach his gospel. And yet
he says, Peter says, God will save us as he saves them the
same way, by his grace. He says in verse 12, then all
the multitude kept silence because of this argument. It was settled
then. And they gave audience to Barnabas
and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had done by or
wrought among the Gentiles by them. And after they had held
their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken
to me, listen to me. Simon, that's Peter, Simon has
declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take
out of them a people for his name. So Gentiles means those
who were not born through Abraham. And the Gentiles really is most
people in the world. We are all Gentiles. As far as
I know it, there aren't any here who were born through Abraham.
So we would be the Gentiles. And it says here that God is
going to visit, according to his word, he is going to visit
those and take out of all the Gentiles a people for his name. So you see, all the Gentiles,
and God's gonna take out of them a people, some of them. Verse
15, and to this, to this truth, agree the words of the prophets,
The prophets, what do prophets do? They tell what God is thinking
and doing, but not just what he's doing right now, but what
he will do. They say before it's done what
will be done. That's what prophets are. They're
declaring the mind and the word of God. That's foreknowledge. God couldn't tell prophets what
was going to happen unless he knew before it happened. So this
word prophets actually carries with it the truth of foreknowledge,
to know before. And God's prophets had said that
God's going to visit the Gentiles and take out of them a people
for his name. He says in verse 16, this is
what was written by the prophets. Quote, after this I will return
and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down
and I will build again the ruins thereof and I will set it up.
So that was spoken of in the book of Amos chapter nine. God
prophesied that he was going to visit a fallen down tabernacle
of David and rebuild it. That's what he said in Amos.
What did he mean when he said that? It was a prophecy. It was
going to happen. Was he talking about rebuilding
a building, a physical building? No, actually, he was talking
about taking a people for himself out of all of the Gentiles, as
he said in verse 14. And so he says, he says in verse
17 here, this is what God said, in order that the residue of
men might seek after the Lord. Now, a residue, you know what
a residue is? When it rains, for example, and
it rains on the driveway where the car was sitting and you see
a little bit of oil on the top of the water, that's a residue
of that oil that was on the driveway. It's a small part of it. And
the residue, therefore, means the leftover or the remnant,
the small part of something. that the residue of men might
seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, notice the words
carefully, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who
doeth all these things. So God spoke by Amos that he
would revisit, he would return and build the tabernacle of David,
and he said the explanation of that, the meaning of that prophecy
was that God was going to come, in power and save a people, a
small number compared to the whole, out of all the Gentiles,
they would be people he would save for himself, for his name. And now notice, here's the words
in verse 18. I wanted to get to this. This
is such a powerful declaration of the truth about who God is.
Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.
Okay, so that's what foreknowledge is. God knows what he will do
before he did anything. He knows everything he's going
to do even before he created time in which we live. Now, if God created everything,
then everything has its original source where? In God, doesn't
it? God created the earth and everything
in it out of nothing, but it came by his word. It came from
his mind. It came from his power. And where
did we come from? From the hand of God. He breathed
into man the breath of life. And he became a living soul.
We were created by him. Look at Acts chapter 17. It talks
about that. Acts chapter 17, just a couple
pages over in your Bible. It says in Acts 17, I will read
from verse 24, God that made the world and all things therein,
there's nothing that God didn't make. There's nothing that God
didn't make. Now, when I was a little kid, I would think,
well, what about that house? I know people built that house.
And then I would reason, well, yeah, but God made the trees.
And he made the people. And they were able, by the knowledge
he gave them, to build a house, and to build the tools to help
them build a house, and all that went with it. So really God is
to be given credit for everything. We can't do anything unless God
gives us the understanding and the strength. We have to have
breath, don't we? Our heart has to beat, we have
to have food. God gives us all those things. So he says, God
that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord
of heaven and earth, that means he's the sovereign. He does whatever
he wants in heaven and earth. He does not dwell in temples
made with hands, neither is He worshipped with men's hands,
as though He needed anything." God doesn't need anything. He's
God. He has everything. "...seeing
that He gives to all life and breath and all things." Where
do we get our life and breath and all things? From God. He
gives them. Therefore, he doesn't need anything
himself. He gives all. He only gives. Nobody comes to
him and says, here's something you don't have that you need.
Verse 26, and he has made of one blood all nations of men
for to dwell on the face of the earth. There aren't people on
earth who have the blood of monkeys and other people who have the
blood of people. We all have the same blood because we're
all people. And he has, notice these words, he has determined
the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation,
we're stuck on earth, aren't we? We don't get to live on Mars. That they should seek the Lord,
if happily they might feel after him and find him, though he be
not far from every one of us. For in him we live and move and
have our being as certain also of your own poets have said,
for we are also his offspring. Okay, but notice, yes, praise
God. Notice in verse 26 that God has
determined the times before and the bounds of our habitation.
He gives all life and breath and all things. So everything
comes from God, doesn't it? All power, the people say, don't
use your lights and your electricity today because we're gonna lose
power. But God doesn't have any limit to his power. People do. People don't have
all power. They can't do whatever they want
to do. They can only do what God allows them to do. And that's
what he's saying here. Now, back to what he said in
Acts 15, 18. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning
of the world. What does that mean? Well, it
means that God knows everything he's going to do before he ever
created anything. And that boggles our minds, doesn't
it? I can't even sit down and build something. I was going
to build something a couple of weeks ago, and I had to sit down
and think hard, how am I going to do this? And I actually figured
out how I was going to do it as I was doing it. That's not
the way God is. When we think about things, we
think about it, and we take this, and we take that, and we put
it together, and we come up, oh, that's the way we're going
to do it. God doesn't think like that. He doesn't say, I've got
to think about this and that and put it together to learn
something new. God knows everything. He doesn't think like we do in
sequences of thought. He knows it all, at all times. There's nothing he doesn't know.
His knowledge is infinite, and we call him omniscient. He knows
everything. We can't know Him. We can't search
Him out because He's infinite. God's knowledge, according to
Psalm 147, verse 5, is infinite. His knowledge is infinite. And
that's amazing. Only someone who is infinite
can understand an infinite knowledge. We can't. We're finite. We're
limited. But God is unlimited in His knowledge. He's unlimited in His power.
There's no limit on what God can do. No one can keep him from
doing what he wants. And all of his thoughts, everything
he wanted to do, he knew what he would do before he ever did
anything. And his works reveal what he
was thinking. Now look at Isaiah chapter 14. I'm just taking you
to a few verses here just to see how great God is in his own
self. Nothing like us, we're so limited. We're insignificantly small. So tiny. In Isaiah 14 and verse
24. Remember this verse. Keep this
verse in your head. He says in Isaiah 14, 24, the
Lord of hosts has sworn. Now, God doesn't have to swear
to make things happen. But when he swears, he's trying
to show us how this thing he is about to say is doubly sure
and certain, it cannot fail. The Lord of hosts has sworn saying,
surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass. And as
I have purposed, so shall it stand. All right. Now, let me ask you a question.
Is there anything God thinks that he doesn't do? According
to this verse, as I have thought, so shall it come to pass. Whatever
God wanted to be is what is. And he also says, and as I have
purposed, so shall it stand. God's purpose can't be stopped. No one can say to God, what are
you doing? We can say that to us, to men, and we ought to,
because men ought to be corrected, but God cannot be corrected.
He never does anything wrong. He's way too wise. He can't fail. His power is unlimited. Everything
he does is holy. And if he does anything, it has
to agree with himself, because that's who he is as God. So if
he blesses someone, it has to be a holy thing, because God
is holy. And so we see that everything
God does, he knew what he would do because he has what's called
foreknowledge. Now, does God know everything?
Yes, he knows everything. Look at, there's many things
like this, but I want you to see, first of all, that, let's
take a look at Romans chapter three, since we're considering
these things. What are we like? If this is
what God is like, what are we like? In Romans chapter three,
in verse 23, it says, all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. That means everybody without
exception, every boy, every girl, every man, every woman, every
old person, every young person, every baby, and every person
at every time in their life has done what is wrong in the eyes
of God. That's what sin is, doing what's
wrong in the eyes of God. All sin is against God, against
what His way of thinking is. And we've fallen short of the
glory of God. That's what we are. But God is
not like that. There's nothing that God does
that's not right. Everything he does is right.
And so we're going to see what this foreknowledge of God leads
to. Now, look at another place in scripture. Look at the book
of Luke. In the book of Luke, Jesus was being taken by wicked
men. They wanted to crucify him, and
they did crucify him. And there was one man named Judas
who betrayed Jesus. He told men where he would be,
and then he led them to where Jesus was, and he turned Jesus
over to them, and they paid him some money. So he betrayed him
for some money. His name was Judas. Look at Luke
chapter 22, and in verse 22, Jesus is talking, he says, truly
the Son of Man goeth, goes to the cross and goes to death,
as it was determined, but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed. It says it was determined. That
means God knew it before and determined that it would be done.
What did God determine that would be done? He determined that Judas
would turn Jesus over to these men who would take him and crucify
him. God determined that. But notice
Jesus says, woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed. He does
go as it was determined, but woe to Judas who betrayed him. And this is teaching us something
very important to understand. When we live our lives, let's
say I go home and I have a piece of cake. And maybe it wasn't
good for me to have, but I wanted it and I ate it. I wanted to
do it, didn't I? Or when I do things that are
wrong, why did I do it? Well, because that's my character,
that's who I am, and I wanted to do it. But how is it that
I was able to do it? Because God determined that I
would be able to do those things and would carry it out. And here
Judas is doing something very, very wrong and God determined
that whatever he wanted to do would be done and he would be
held completely accountable for it. And yet God is the one who
determined it would be done. Judas did whatever he wanted
to do. He didn't feel like he was compelled
to do it. He just wanted to. He didn't feel God's hand pushing
him or helping him do it. He just did it. And yet God held
him responsible. But God also had already, before
it was done, determined that it should be done. And he let
Judas do whatever was in his heart. And that's exactly what
God wanted to come to pass and accomplish. No one kept God from
his purpose. God accomplished his work through
the wickedness of Judas. And what was that work? Well,
Jesus went to the cross and other place of scripture, it says,
God delivered up his son for us. So what God accomplished
by the wickedness of Judas was for good. Judas meant it for
evil, God meant it for good. And so God's foreknowledge also
determined what should be done, and it was accomplished because
it was God's purpose. And so we see God's greatness
in that. And we also see God's greatness because what he accomplished
is always good, even though he used the wickedness of man to
accomplish it, and then held that man accountable for his
sin. Now, does that make you feel
small? Doesn't that make you feel like you need God to save
you from your wickedness? It does me. And who else can
save us from what we are and what we want to do but God alone
who made us and whose grace can do that. Now look also at Acts
chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, the same thing
is said, only it's said there with strong words. This is the
foreknowledge of God. We're seeing how it works out.
In Acts chapter 2 and verse 23, he says, now this is a sermon
by Peter to men who God sent Peter to preach to. They themselves
had crucified Jesus. Not all of them, but some of
them had actually nailed him to the cross, called out for
him to be crucified, and were part of those who crucified him.
And now God is preaching to them through Peter, and he's going
to tell them something about themselves and about God. In
verse 23, Well, I'll read verse 22, you men of Israel, that's
who he's talking to, hear these words. This is the truth, Jesus
of Nazareth, a man approved of God. among you by miracles and
wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you. God
did the miracles through Christ. As you yourselves also know,
notice, him, Jesus Christ, being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God you have taken and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain. God's determinate counsel. It means what God predetermined,
what he determined to be done before it was done. His determinate
counsel, where did God hold this counsel? In his own thoughts. His own thoughts knew what he
would do, he knew what he wanted to be done, and that's what was
done, and that's what gave him the knowledge of what would be
because he determined that it should be. Do you understand
it? So God's foreknowledge is knowing
what would be because he determined what should be and would be.
And known unto God are all his works from the foundation, the
beginning of the world. Even the works of the wicked
are in his hand to accomplish his work. And look over at chapter four.
Now this was preached to these sinners to teach them that God
determined this, they were guilty for it, and therefore they needed
salvation by the one God who could save them. In Acts 4.27,
he says, of a truth, Acts 4.27, for of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus, this is a prayer to God by these people. Of a
truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed,
both Herod, Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of
Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand
and thy counsel determined before to be done. So the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ, God's only begotten son, was God's will.
And it was accomplished through the wickedness of men. God did
it in order to save His people from their sins. And that's the
goodness of God. But the power of God and the
foreknowledge of God included all the things leading up to
accomplishing that good work through the wickedness of these
men. You see, God is showing He absolutely triumphs over His
enemies. He uses their intentions and
their works to overthrow Him, to accomplish His will, to overthrow
them. and to save his people from their
sins. The intention of Satan was Satan's
demise. It ruined him. His work and his
will to destroy God's son was Satan's defeat. And this is the
amazing power and wisdom of God, who knows all things and does
all things according to his will. Now let's look at Romans chapter
8. We're talking about the foreknowledge
of God. and his will that cannot fail. He does all his thoughts and
his purpose shall stand. In Romans chapter eight, look
at these words in verse 28. And we know, we know this, that
all things, and it doesn't mean anything, there's nothing left
out here. All things work together for
good. to them that love God. This is
amazing. In all of the events of history
and time, God is working everything, whether good or bad, together
for the good of those that love God. That's what he's saying
here. And he says, to them who are the called according to his
purpose. Okay, so God is working everything
for good to those who love God, and they are the called. Remember
in Acts 15, you might not remember it, but he said that God's gonna
call out of the Gentiles. He's gonna take out of them a
people for his name. They're the called. God's gonna
call them. They're going to hear. They're
going to believe. That's God's work in them. Those
people are the called. and they're called according
to a purpose, God's purpose. What is that purpose? Verse 29. What does the first word say?
For. He's gonna explain the purpose. What's the next word? Whom. The purpose has to do with the
people. He already said that all the events, all the stuff,
the what, is gonna work together for their good. And now he's
talking about them, for whom he did, what's that word? For
no. Now this is a different knowledge
than God has of rocks and plants and animals and bees and clouds
and the sun. This is a different kind of for
no. This kind of knowledge is a special
knowledge. This is a knowledge, as it said
in Acts 15, that God, known unto God are all his works from the
beginning of the world. And the work he had in view was
to take out of the Gentiles a people for his name. Notice he says,
for whom he did for know. And we'll go to verses to show
this, but what he really means here is a knowledge that's not
just a knowledge like, I know that there's a book laying on
this table, but it's a knowledge like, I know Denise over there,
my wife. I have an intimate knowledge
of her in love. This is a knowledge of love,
a knowledge of intimacy, a knowledge of a close relation. In another place in scripture,
in Matthew 7, 23, Jesus will tell some, I never knew you. And in Matthew 25 and verse 12
and verse 14, he says, I don't know who you are. It wasn't that
he didn't know these people as you would know your dog or your
cat or your house. He knew them by their name, but
he didn't know them in this way, in the way of saving knowledge,
a special knowledge that would actually save them. We're going
to see what he's talking about here. for whom the purpose of
God for those, he works all things together for good, who are the
called, for them, for whom he did foreknow, he loved them before
in a special way of saving grace, he also did predestinate. It means here that he determined
their end. He determined what he would do
for them before he ever did it. For them, he aligned up in his
design everything that would come to pass so that it would
be for them to accomplish his purpose. And this is what it
was. Here's the purpose. The purpose is this, to be conformed
to the image of his son. And there's a bigger purpose.
Notice the next part, that he, the son, might be the firstborn
among many brethren. What was God's ultimate purpose?
That Jesus Christ, his son, would be the firstborn among many brethren. Now, firstborn means to have
the preeminence. It means to be the first. It
means to be the head. He's the first. And He's the only begotten Son
of God. He's the only one who is in every
way equal to God, the Father. He's the only one who stood in
His nature from eternity in that unique relation of Son to His
Father and Father to His Son. But here we can see God has a
purpose. to make others sons in the same
image as his only son. That's his purpose. And God's
purpose to do that was for these, he said, he foreknew that he
loved before, and those for whom he worked all things together
for good in order to fulfill that purpose. So His knowledge
of them, of love, included His knowledge of His purpose to conform
them to the image of His Son in order that His Son might be
the firstborn among many brethren. In Hebrews 2.10 it says, it became
Him, God the Father, by whom are all things and for whom are
all things, in bringing many sons to glory. His goal was to
bring many sons to glory. And God will do that. In fact,
if God didn't do that, what would it say? It says that God either
decided to change his mind, which he never does, Because it says,
for example, in 1 Samuel 15, 29, the strength of Israel is
not a man that he should repent. He's not going to change his
mind. God never changes his mind like we do. He's immutable. He does not change. Jesus Christ
is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So he doesn't change
his mind. Or it means if he doesn't fulfill
his purpose, what? lied. He said he would do something
that he didn't do. Or it means that he wasn't able. But God cannot lie. And God has
unlimited power. He's almighty. if he wasn't able
to make his son the firstborn among many brethren, then he
not only would not have failed because he didn't have enough
power, but it would also mean that he failed to give his son
what he promised to give him, which was many sons, many children. He gave them to him to save.
And even though Jesus had laid his life down to save them, if
God didn't make these his sons, by Jesus Christ, and he failed
to give to Christ what he promised to give him as a result of his
death. Well, it's impossible that any
of these failures could happen with God. God cannot lie. He
cannot fail. His power is limitless. He's able even to overcome our
sin. And if he wasn't able, there
would be no hope for us. So God's purpose, his ultimate
purpose, is to bring many sons to glory, that Christ might be
the firstborn, raised up on high, given all glory and honor, and
that all would look upon him and see his greatness, for his
love for them and his death to save them from their sins, and
then see God's purpose in his own heart and nature and character
in what he did out of his own mind. An eternal thought. All the thoughts of God were
concerning this. There's nothing greater than
this. This is God's purpose for all of creation. To work all
things together for the good of those that he loved before
and that therefore love him. because he called them and he
gave his son for them and he will, without fail, conform all
of them to the image of his dear son. And the ultimate purpose
is so that he might have many children. They would be his sons
through him. Christ would give his blood to
redeem them from their sins. He would send his spirit that
they might know their sonship and then by his power, Think
about this. What are we? And what do we do? Well, we just do whatever nonsense
and foolishness and wrongdoing that we do as people. But when
God wants to accomplish his work through us, he has to give us
his spirit. He has to work that work in us. It's not in us naturally to do
what's right. It says, it is God who is at
work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. So
if we are able to believe, it's because God enabled us to. If
we're able to love God, it's because God first loved us, showed
that to us, and gave us grace to love Him. So all that we do
in being conformed to His image is God's work in us. It's God's
work entirely. It's all God's work, and that's
the point here. God gets all the glory. It's
all His work. In what way are we conformed
to the Lord Jesus Christ here? Well, we have his nature and
we have Christ by his spirit living in us. This is the way
we are enabled to do what God wants us to do. Christ himself
lives in us. We have no strength to do what's
right. We have no inclination to do what's right. Our minds
are far from what is right, but the Lord Jesus Christ lives in
us. And he causes us to believe on him. And this is the obedience
that God gives, so that when we look upon the Lord Jesus Christ,
we see God saved us by his only Son. The Son of God who loved
me and gave himself for me. And we see that. And it causes
us, by God-given faith, to trust him in such a way that we find
ourselves loving the fact that he saved us all by himself, and
that he's going to do the work of conforming us to his image.
And this is what is meant by God's foreknowledge. He foreknew
his people. He knew them, not just as things,
but as persons, and not just as every other person, but as
a special relationship to take them out of the Gentiles, people
for himself, in love, and to conform them without fail, without
failing to conform them all the way to the image of his Son.
This is God's work. This is God's purpose. And if
God said it, if God established it in His thoughts and in His
purpose, He, according to His Word, will bring it to pass,
won't He? If He doesn't, He's not God. But He is God. And we trust Him
to do what we cannot do. what he promised to do for us.
And this God-given faith causes us to call upon him and to look
to the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified, to take away the penalty our
sins deserved. Look at Ephesians chapter one.
Let me just read these first seven verses here, or from verse
two through verse seven. This is talking about those who
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the prayer. inspired
by the Holy Spirit, written by the Apostle Paul to these people.
He says, grace be to you, not to all people everywhere, but
to you, and peace from God our Father, those who are the children
of God, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. This grace and peace
are both from the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice,
he's going to praise God with the highest kind of praise. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with how many? All spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. Nothing will be lacking. According, and this is for all
of his people, according as, this is one of the chief blessings,
the spring of it, this is where it started, the fountain of all
blessings. according as He has chosen us
in Him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. We
are made holy and we are made without blame because God chose
us in Christ and Christ is the one who by His work has made
us holy and without blame. We are justified by his blood. There is nothing lacking in anyone
for whom Christ died. They're holy and without blame
by his blood. And then in verse five, having
predestinated us, predetermined before our end unto the adoption
of children to be his sons. Remember, to conform us to the
image of his son, to bring many sons to glory, that Christ might
be the firstborn. And He did this adoption by Jesus
Christ to Himself, notice, according to the good pleasure of His will. This is God's purpose, His will,
what we read about in Romans 8. This is why, to the praise
of the glory of His grace. Because when God does this for
us, we can't take any credit. God does it out of his grace,
wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved, in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the firstborn. In whom, Christ, we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace. Now look at the end of the chapter, Ephesians
1. God has put all things under his feet, verse 22. and gave
him to be the head over all things to the church. Why did God exalt
his son to give all things to him and to the church? Because God has joined the Lord
Jesus Christ so intimately to his people that they're inseparable. All that we did by sinning was
made the obligation of Christ to pay for in His obedience and
death. And all that He did in His love
to save us from our sins is given, is rewarded by God in justification
and all other blessings because of what we did in Him. Christ
did it for us, and He did it all for us. But He says here,
In verse 23, the church, which is his body, notice the next
words, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. You see God's
purpose? If the Lord fails to conform
his people to the image of his son, if he fails to bring them
and give them to him, in this bond of love, then God has failed
in His purpose, and that cannot happen. And God works all things
together for the good of them to do this, to accomplish His
will. Everything in creation and time, in our lives personally
and outside of our lives, everything in heaven and in earth is worked
together. Whether good or bad, whether
it be Judas turning Jesus over in betrayal or Herod punches
Pilate, the Gentiles and the Jews putting him on the cross.
All of it is working together for our good. To bring us and
to conform us to the image of Christ that Christ might have
the preeminence in all things. That he might be lifted up by
God and God would have many sons just like his son. giving them
His Spirit, giving them His character, His nature, giving them His righteousness,
giving them His blessings, giving them His inheritance. Everything
is Christ will be given us. We will be like Him when we see
Him as He is. This is all God's work. This
sprang from God's foreknowledge. All of His works are known by
Him before He ever began anything in creation. No one influenced
Him. No one changed His mind. God's mind cannot change. His
purpose cannot fail. God's power is limitless. His
mind is infinite. He's everywhere present. Time
cannot contain Him. He's in eternity. He is eternal
God. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your greatness, especially in the salvation of us who are
so helplessly wicked in ourselves. We need a great savior. The Lord
Jesus Christ is our savior. We have been made to trust him
to do everything to save us from our sins and this to the praise
of the glory of your grace, according to the good pleasure of your
will. What a God, what a salvation,
what a savior. Lord, by your grace, according
to your goodness, we pray for this mercy towards us. By your
spirit, we would be enabled to believe and love the Lord Jesus
Christ with all that we are. That every moment of our lives,
all our thoughts and words and actions, we would realize we
are in the hand of God. And may we depend upon you by
Jesus Christ to conform us perfectly to the image of your dear son,
that you might fulfill your eternal purpose to give him many children,
the sons you've made yours through his precious blood and by your
spirit. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.