The first 14 verses or so, and
then we'll jump in. Ephesians 1, starting at the
beginning, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of
God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ
Jesus, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose
us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be
holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for
adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose
of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which
he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the
riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom
and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according
to his purpose which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the
fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven,
and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance,
having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works
all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were
the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the
promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance
until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. So when we were in verses 1 and
2, we examined the calling of the Apostle Paul. We did so in
order to have an understanding of the authority by which Paul
delivers to us this letter to the Ephesians. We saw in Acts 9 that Paul, who
was a murderer of Christians, the chief murderer of God's people,
was traveling to Damascus when he was thrown to the ground and
Christ himself appeared to him and said, Paul, why are you persecuting
me? And there were two Funny observations
I wanted to make there that people often sort of misunderstand about
Paul. His name did not change, right? It tells us Paul also called
Saul. And then you might be familiar
with a famous painting of the conversion of Paul where he is
thrown off of his horse. Acts does not tell us that Paul
was riding a horse. But what we were really looking
to do there was to understand how Paul received the word that
he received and how Paul delivered it to us. He was appointed an
apostle by Christ himself. And Paul tells us in 2 Timothy
3 that all scripture is breathed out by God and it is profitable
for teaching and for correcting and rebuking and for training
in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete and
equipped for every good work. And so what we see in scripture
is a sort of paradigm of the ways scripture teaches us. It's
a positive, negative, and a doctrinal, practical thing here. We have
teaching where scripture teaches us what we ought to believe.
It teaches us things about God, and it teaches us things about
Christ. But scripture also corrects our
errors, does it not? The first chapter of Galatians,
we see one such error corrected. Paul describes the circumcision
party and how there were those who had faith in their circumcision
and in their good works, and he asked them, how have they
been so bewitched? And scripture also tells us how
we should live our lives, right? It tells us how we should relate
to one another, what we should do, and scripture tells us what
we should not do. It tells us what is right, and
it tells us what is wrong. But the important thing I want
you to understand about Scripture is that all Scripture is breathed
out by God. Now, there are Bibles out there
that have some of the letters in red. And there are churches
and teachers who believe that those red letters, which are
those words that were verbally given to us from Christ, are
more important than the black ones. I'm not going to tell you
to throw away your red letter Bibles, but we should understand that
this letter to the Ephesians that is written in black in most
Bibles is given to us with the same divine and sovereign authority
as those red letters, those words spoken by Christ. So just as
Christ instructed his disciples and just as Christ instructed
the crowds, Paul instructs the church with the same authority. Now it's important to understand
the audience of this letter, who Paul is writing to. Paul
is writing to the church, to the saints who are in Ephesus
and are faithful in Christ Jesus. And it is in that context and
through that lens that we have to understand this letter and
really the whole New Testament. Those who are not in the church
are not the audience of this letter. Now, to be clear, those
who are not in the church, those who are not in the faith should
be the objects of our evangelism, right? The gospel is to be proclaimed
to all people indiscriminately. but to understand theology and
right practice is to be in the church, is to be assembled with
the saints. So we will read this letter through
that lens in the context of the gathering of the local church. In verse 3, Paul begins by extolling
God. It says, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in one sense, that is a declaration
of praise for God. But in another sense, it teaches
us something about how God relates to us. Our faith, our good works,
the things that we do in faith, they are pleasing to him. They
bring him joy. God is pleased when his people
love, is he not? And in that sense we might say
that God the Father is blessed as long as we understand that
those good works that we do have earned us nothing. The affection of the Father,
the blessings of the Father are earned for us by Christ and his
righteousness, by Christ and his work in cleansing us, his
people. His obedience in his life and
his obedience to death on the cross. God is blessed. And God has blessed us in Christ. Right? With salvation, we have
been blessed in Christ for his work on the cross. And with every spiritual blessing,
Paul tells us, we have been blessed. So not just that we have been
saved, we've been taken out of darkness, but every blessing
found in scripture is ours through faith in Christ. Now that is not to say that we
will not struggle. It's not to say that we will
not have trials and temptations. But through the grace that is
found in Christ, we may rest when those things come around.
We can rest. We have peace and comfort and
joy in the grace of God found in Christ Jesus. We are blessed
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now we're
going to get into verse four and what we're going to see here
in verse four is the center of the rest of the letter, the center
of really the testimony of the New Testament. We're going to
spend all of our time today in verse 4, and we're going to find
that as we read through the next 10 verses, 5 through 14, that
Paul is really saying the same thing over and over again in
different ways. So while today we will only be
in verse 4, I think our pace will pick up a bit as we get
through the rest of the first half of chapter 1. Paul tells us that we have been
blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. So today's message and the rest
of verses 5 through 14 are going to be heavily theological in
nature. We are going to explore the doctrine
of God, we're gonna explore the doctrine of salvation. And Paul
really doesn't begin practical instruction for the church in
terms of how we relate to one another until verse 15. And so we're gonna be heavily
theological. We're going to reinforce the gospel of our hope, the foundation
of our faith, because that's how Paul begins this letter. And I think this will be good.
I think it will complement the practical teaching from Timothy
that James is going through on all the other Sundays. And so in verse 4, Paul lays
out the center, the theme, and the point of the rest of the
letter and the hope that we have. God's decree of election sits
at the center the beginning and the end of redemptive history. So we need to understand this
word, chose, even as he chose us. We need to understand what
it means, where it comes from, and what it says about God. And to do so, we need to examine
the nature of God himself. We need to explore how God relates
to his creation. This word chose tells us that
God has made an active, a conscious, a deliberate, a free, and an
uncompelled choice of some kind. And to contrast that, I'm gonna
give you a vocabulary word for today if you're taking notes.
That is the word theistic mutualism. That'll be the biggest word you
get today, I think. Theistic mutualism is this idea
that there is some give and take between us and God, that we have
something to offer him. And what we're gonna see today
is that it is not the case. This idea of theistic mutualism,
that we bring something to the table of redemption, is unbiblical. So this understanding of the
word choose is rooted in understanding God's nature, in particular His
immutability. What that means is that God does
not change. We have to understand that God's
nature never changes. To do that, we're going to go
to the Old Testament. Turn with me to Numbers chapter 23. Genesis Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Numbers chapter 23. We're going
to begin in verse 13 and what we're really looking for here
is the word of the Lord spoken to Balaam. We're going to start
in verse 13. And Balak said to him, please
come with me to another place from which you may see them.
You shall see only a fraction of them and shall not see them
all. Then curse them for me from there. And he took him to the
field of Zopham, to the top of Pisgah and built seven altars
and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. Balaam said to
Balak, stand here beside your burnt offering while I meet with
the Lord over there. The Lord met Balaam and put a
word in his mouth and said, return to Balak and thus shall you speak.
And he came to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt
offering, and the princes of Moab with him. Balak said to
him, what has the Lord spoken? Balaam took up his discourse
and said, rise, Balak, and hear. Give ear to me, O son of Zippor.
God is not a man that he should lie, or a son of man that he
should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not
do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Behold,
I received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I cannot
revoke it. He has not beheld the misfortune
in Jacob, nor has he seen trouble in Israel. The Lord, their God,
is with them, and the shout of a king is among them." So Balaam
delivers this word of the Lord given to him directly from the
mouth of God, and he makes the observation that the work of
God cannot be changed. He has blessed and I cannot revoke
it. The work of God cannot be reversed,
it cannot be impaired, it cannot be inhibited by men. And this is true for us as well,
isn't it? that the work of God in our lives for salvation cannot
be taken away. We see this in Romans 8. We see this in John 6. All that
you have given to me, I will raise them up. I will lose nothing
of those you have given me. Now, Balaam tells us something
here. He says that The Lord is not a son of man that he may
change his mind. When you think of a change of
mind, you should think of the word repent. Remember two weeks
ago, James hit this pretty hard. This idea of repentance. Repentance is a change of mind. We know from the testimony of
Christ and the disciples that repentance, whatever that means,
is a feature of true faith. Right? Repent and believe that
the kingdom of God is at hand. And so we should not understand
this repentance as a change of behavior. Repentance does not
mean stop sinning. but it might lead to a change
in behavior because it is a change of mind. Repentance happens here.
It changes the way you view sin. It's a change of mind with respect
to the things that we do. So as we read through scripture,
there are two types of repentance that we need to understand and
keep straight. First, there is evangelical repentance. There's another vocabulary word
for you. Evangelical or general repentance. And this is that
repentance that is affected by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. At the time of faith, we experience
an evangelical repentance wherein our minds are changed with regard
to all sin. Right? The lost person, as we
understand from Romans 3, 10 through 18, is wicked. I always joke that I can't get
through a sermon without referencing Romans 3. Paul tells us that
none are good. No, not one. But in regeneration, your mind
is changed. Apart from Christ, you love your
sin. Apart from Christ, you don't
even think sin is that bad. But in conversion, by the power
of the Holy Spirit, your mind is changed. You see the things
that you do and you recognize that it is sinful. You recognize
your opposition to God. That is repentance. Your mind
is changed about who you were and what you did. The evangelical
repentance. There's also this idea of particular
repentance, right? As we grow and mature in our
faith, we repent of particular sins particularly. As we learn,
we see things that we do and we come to understand those things
are sinful too. I'm not going to be so naive
as to believe that at the moment of your conversion you immediately
recognize all the sins in your lives and are able to put them
all to death at once. As you continue to learn and
read scripture, continue to grow closer to Christ, the Holy Spirit
will point out things in your lives that you realize, I need
to stop doing that. Those things that you used to
do, those things that you now do, you begin to recognize things
that really are sinful, that you didn't think were before.
And so, as those things are revealed to our hearts, as the Holy Spirit
convicts us of these things, we repent. Our mind is changed
about these things. And as our mind is changed through
the power of the Holy Spirit, we work to change the behavior,
right? And it can be a struggle. Our
flesh fights against the Spirit, does it not? Until the day when
our flesh is finally and forever put to death in the glorification
of our bodies, our flesh will fight against us. But our minds have been changed.
We have the Spirit of God. We have repented. So this repentance
is a change of mind. And Balaam tells us that God
is not a son of man, that he should change his mind. Now, I want to explore the book
of Job a little bit. And it'll be clear enough why
we're doing these things in a moment. If you read the book of Job,
we have 37 chapters of essentially silence from God. We have a little
bit in chapter 1 where Satan, the accuser, has a meeting with
God. And God says, if you considered
my servant, Job. And what we see is that by the
command of God, this Satan, the accuser, he is on God's payroll.
He takes command from God. He can do nothing except which
God permits him. And God permits him to mess with
Job. Takes away everything that he
has, except his wife, unfortunately. I'm not kidding, read it. Of
all the things that God took away, it was worse for Job to
leave his wife. And she tells Job to curse God
and die. And then Job has several friends
who have nothing good to say. And finally, God speaks. In Job chapter 38, the Lord answered
Job out of the whirlwind and said, Who is this that darkens
counsel by words without knowledge, dress for action like a man? I will question you and you make
it known. And that's a rhetorical question, right? Who is this?
God knows who Job is. Where were you when I laid the
foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know. Or who stretched the line upon
it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone when
the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted
for joy? I love reading Job 38 through
41 because we have all these rhetorical questions that sort
of put us in our place. They help us to understand who
we are in relation to God the Father. Have you commanded the
morning since its days begun and caused the dawn to know its
place that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth and
the wicked be shaken out of it? So God goes on with these rhetorical
questions for four chapters. And finally in Job 42, Job speaks. Job answered the Lord and said,
I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours
can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel
without knowledge? I have uttered what I did not
understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know.
Here, and I will speak, I will question you, and you make it
known to me, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eyes see you. Therefore I despise myself and
repent in dust and ashes." Here we see Job repenting of something.
He says, I repent in dust and ashes, which tells us that there was
no behavior change. because Job has been sitting
naked in the rubble of his home since Job chapter two. For 40 chapters, Job has been
bemoaning the loss of all that he has in dust and ashes. Okay, Job wasn't doing fine and
then says, okay, now I'm going to repent. I'm going to, you
know, take off all my clothes, put on a sack and wail on the
floor. This is where Job's been the
whole time. There's no behavior change in Job. His mind is changed
toward the things that have happened. He has repented. He understands
that God is sovereign. God is holy. God is in charge. And no decree of God can be thwarted. So the two things I want you
to understand here God does not change his mind and we cannot
interfere with what God has decreed. So taking these things together
so that we can understand this word chose in Ephesians 1, nothing
that man can do or has ever done or ever will do has any bearing
on God's sovereign decree to save his people. The choice of
Ephesians 1-4 is God's free and sovereign power to save those
he wants. The reason he chooses to save
any particular person has nothing to do with anything he has foreseen
concerning that person. If God's decree is conditioned
on the choices of man, God's choice is not free. This idea that God is reaching
out to us, expecting an exercise of free will from us, strips
God of this liberty that he has in saving his people, strips
God of his sovereignty that Paul tells us about in Ephesians 1-4. And we're gonna explore this
further. Paul goes on in Ephesians 1, 4, tells us that even as he
chose us in him before the foundation of the world, Paul places God's
sovereign election into a temporal relation with us. He tells us
when it happened, before the foundation of the world. God's sovereign election is given
by his free and uncompelled decree before creation. This tells us that God's grace
is given freely in Christ because it was determined before we had
opportunity to earn it. Luke and Melissa, y'all will
appreciate this because you've seen me get fired up about it
before. But we see the foolishness of what I call the corridors
of time doctrine. that God in his wisdom peered
through the corridors of time. And I use that phrase because
it's sort of the identifying phrase that we always see with
this doctrine. That somehow God observed those
who would chose him and then he chose them, having seen that
they would be appropriate objects for his affection. God does not
have to check and make sure that he's loving the right people. There was nothing for God to
foresee but the wickedness of our own hearts and his own work
in saving us. Paul emphasizes this very same
thing in Romans chapter nine. about the particular election
of Jacob, not Esau, as the inheritor of the birthright, the father
of Israel. And he goes on to explain that this is precisely
how God has sovereignly chosen to elect his people. Now, I'm
not going to rip Romans 9 out of its context, so I'm going
to explain how we get there from Romans 1 through 8. Paul begins Romans 1 by presenting
us with a problem that There are wicked people out there,
right? And then in Romans 2, he tells us that there are wicked
Gentiles, and there are also wicked Jews. And he goes back
and forth in all of Romans 2 and the first half of Romans 3, identifying
that there's really no difference between Jews and Greeks with
respect to wickedness. And he tells us in Romans 3,
Just as it is with the Jew, it is with the Gentile, that none
is good, no, not one. Then he continues to explore
this absence of a distinction between
Jews and Gentiles in Romans 4, 5, 6. He talks about Abraham, he uses
God's election of the Jews to show us his election of those
who are truly his people, the church, the elect of God. Then in Romans 7, he explores
our lack of ability, our inability to do what we want when it comes
to pleasing God. Paul tells us, I do the things
I don't want to do, and I don't do the things that I do want
to do. And comes to the conclusion in
the first part of Romans 8, that those who live according to the
flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. Those who
live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things
of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to
set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind
that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. does not submit to God's
law, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot
please God. Apart from Christ, we are unable
to please God. And the solution to this problem
we see in Romans 9. Again in verse 9, for this is
what the promise said. He's talking about Jacob and
Esau now. About this time next year I will
return and Sarah shall have a son and not only so but also with
Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac.
Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good
or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue. Not
because of works, but because of him who calls. She was told
the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved,
but Esau I hated. What shall we say then? Is there
injustice on God's part? By no means. He says to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. And I will have compassion
on whom I have compassion. So then it depends not on human
will or exertion. but on God who has mercy. The
scripture says to Pharaoh, for this purpose I have raised you
up, that I might show my power in you, that my name might be
proclaimed in all the earth. He has mercy on whomever he wills,
and he hardens whomever he wills. So Paul is telling us here that
the salvation that we experience does not depend on us, does not
depend on our good works, does not depend on our free will,
but it depends on God who has mercy. Now Paul doesn't leave
us hanging in Ephesians 1. He tells us where it comes from,
right? Because we know that God is just. God can't just save
unrighteous people. He can't just forgive unrighteousness,
right? Because he is justice, he must
judge wickedness. And he promises to, right? Throughout
the Old Testament, throughout the Psalms, throughout the New
Testament, we see in Revelation, God will judge the wicked. But Paul establishes for us the
grounds by which we are judged righteous, despite our wickedness.
Even as he chose us It's the words that I skipped, right?
We've seen chose us and we've seen before the foundation of
the world. What did I skip in verse four? Even as he chose
us in him. And this in him is the same in
Christ of verse three. Our Lord Jesus Christ who has
blessed us in Christ. every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places even as he chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world for the proof that our salvation this elective decree
of God is free and sovereign because it depends on not but
the work of God himself it does not depend on man Paul
proclaims that we are chosen in Christ, and he's telling us
something about the nature of our redemption here. Paul is outlining a heavenly
transaction, an eternal covenant, a deal that was struck not between
God and man, but between God and God. Those who are chosen,
those who are in Christ, and those who are in Christ are those
whom the Father has given to the Son. Those who are saved
are saved on account of the work of Christ, and that work being
that he has satisfied the wrath of God on their behalf. So what we're going to call this
is, if you're taking notes, another vocabulary word, the covenant
of redemption, that there is an eternal covenant between God
the Father and God the Son. Now, it is not explicit in Scripture. Scripture does not say, there
is a covenant made between God the Father and God the Son. Wouldn't
it be so convenient if our systematic theologies were so clearly explained? But we can observe all the elements
of a covenant in Scripture. We can observe that an exchange
happens, a deal is made. A work is performed in exchange
for a promise, a blessing. That's what a covenant is. God
the Father promises to glorify the Son as the bridegroom. By giving him a bride with him,
he may enjoy eternal communion. And in exchange, God the Son
must do the work to cleanse them so that they may be suitable
as a bride and suitable to enjoy the presence of God." So while
we don't observe the word covenant in Scripture used to describe
specifically this, we observe all of those elements. Turn to
John chapter 17. Everything we need to understand
this heavenly covenant is found in John 17. And the interesting
thing here in John 17 is that Jesus makes
a demand of the Father. We wouldn't see that in Job,
would we? We don't see anyone making demands of God in Job.
But here we see God the Son commanding the Father to do something. Father, the hour has come. Glorify
your Son that the Son may glorify you. since you have given him
authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you
have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the
only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified
you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to
do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with
the glory that I had with you before the world existed. So here we have direct evidence
of some sort of heavenly transaction that happened. God the Son is
assigned a work to perform, and having performed that work, God
the Son now demands of the Father what he was promised. There's something else I want
to observe here. In verse 2 there in John 17, you have given him
authority over all flesh, and authority to give eternal life
to all whom you have given him." This tells us about the authority
that Christ has in the work that he performs. What I want you to understand
from this is that this contradicts the idea that the work of Christ
is somehow universal in its application. I am sure you have heard it said
before that Jesus died for everyone, that Jesus performed a work that
made something possible that everyone has an opportunity to
grasp. But John 17, Jesus tells us who
he has authority over, who he has the authority to save. You have given him, God the Son,
authority to give eternal life to those you have given him. And those who have been given
to Christ, Jesus tells us in John 17, starting in verse 6,
I've manifested your name to the people who you gave me out
of the world. Yours they were, and you gave
them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that
everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given
them the words that you gave me, and they have received them
and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they
have believed that you have sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world,
but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All of mine are yours, and yours
are mine, and I am glorified in them. I am no longer in the
world. but they are in the world and
I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which
you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one. Remember with this covenant,
we're talking about a work performed by God the Son in exchange for
glory and a bride. These people that have been given
to the Son. Jesus is very clear that this
giving is not universal. He is not praying for the world. His work is not done for the
world. His work is done for the people
who are given to Him by the Father, His bride. Remember I said He has to cleanse
that bride, right? Because we're wicked. We're unclean, right? Apart from this work of Christ,
we saw it in Romans 8, we can do nothing to please God. In Ephesians 5, which we will
get to in seven years, Paul describes this work of cleansing. He does it as an example of how
husbands ought to love their wives. Ephesians 5, 25, husbands,
love your wives. If you stop right there, you
think, I'm pretty good at that. I can do that, right? As Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her. That's a little bit
harder, right? How did Christ love the church?
How did Christ love his bride? He died. that he might sanctify her, having
cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that
he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot
or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without
blemish. So this bride of Christ, the
elect, God's people, the church, they are all born into the sin
of Adam. We are all by nature wicked,
guilty, But through the work of Christ,
we are presented as holy and righteous. So what we see here is something
that Martin Luther called the great exchange. An exchange happened. A changing of accounts happened. First, we have Christ's obedience,
his righteousness. is imputed to us, right? Christ came and lived as a human,
with human flesh. And he perfectly obeyed the law
of God. And not just the letter of the
law, right? Because the Pharisees did that.
And so much more. Or at least they claim to. But Christ obeyed perfectly the
letter and proper spirit of all of God's law. And in this exchange, in the
work of Christ, that righteousness, that obedience is counted to
us, right? Because we can't do it, right?
Even if, you know, from right now on, I live perfectly the
rest of my life. I've been guilty for 29 years. I've been transgressing God's
law for 29 years. And the law demands death. Because the law demands death,
And we cannot just be arbitrarily counted righteous. Christ submits
to the judgments of the law on our behalf. Our guilt is imputed
to him. This exchange happens. We receive
the righteousness of Christ. We are made holy. We are made
blameless, not guilty, because Christ was blameless and not
guilty. and our guilt is imputed to Christ
and he submits to the judgments of the law. He receives the wrath
of God that was due to us. He was beaten, he was nailed
to a cross, he bled and he died as the law demanded so that we would be made holy
and blameless. And that's the rest of verse
four, isn't it? Back to Ephesians. Even as he chose us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless
before him. I want you to understand what
holiness is and what holiness isn't. Holiness just means that we've
been set apart for a specific purpose. So our holiness or our
sanctification, same word, holy, sanctified, they all come from
the same Greek root. Our sanctification, our holiness
is found in the giving of the bride to the son. The purpose that us, God's people,
have been set apart for is to be the bride of Christ, to be
the church, the assembly, the gathering, to be set apart to enjoy eternal
communion with him. So we are washed clean by the
blood of Christ. Having been made suitable as a bride, we
are given to Christ. This is our sanctification. And
this is what scripture is talking about when it says sanctification. We're set apart for the particular
purpose of being the bride of Christ, to enjoy Him forever. Now, there's a doctrine you might
read about, and I want you to understand what it means. If
you've ever heard of this idea of progressive sanctification,
I'm going to put this into context for us. so we can understand
what it means and what it doesn't mean. When you hear progressive sanctification,
I want you to think of particular repentance. Remember, in particular repentance,
as we grow and mature in our faith, things are revealed to
us that we come to understand are sinful. We say, okay, my
mind has changed to that thing. That's a sin. It's the same way
with progressive sanctification. Think of it as the setting apart
of this or that thing in our life. In contrast, there is an abuse
of this idea of progressive sanctification and particular repentance that
connects it to our reason for our hope. We are and we have been sanctified
completely already in Christ. We have been given to the Son. And we must be wary of teachers
who would instruct us to find hope and assurance in our good
works. Because just as our good works
have done nothing to earn our salvation, our good works do
nothing to keep our salvation. If we have faith in Christ, we
can have assurance that Christ is faithful to us. Right? Christ is the rock of our hope.
Christ and his righteousness is the rock upon which we build
our castles. And the good that we do, if we
try to find hope in it, is the sand that washes away. Your sanctification is found
in Christ. As we grow and mature, we see
things that we recognize as sinful and through the power of the
Holy Spirit, through the power of prayer, through the power
of scripture, through the power of accountability with our brothers
and sisters in the church, we put those things to death. Sometimes
they come back to life. Sins that you have not committed
in years can just show up one day, right? But God has given us things to
do about that. God has established in scripture
The ways in which we kill sin. What did I say at the beginning?
We're going to look at this through the lens of the local church,
through the assembly, because that's who this was written to.
All these things, these methods, these means of grace that God
has established for our good in scripture happen in the local
assembly. We hear the word taught. We pray
together, we sing together, we take the Lord's table together. We have accountability with one
another, we confess our sins, we share our struggles, and we
shoulder the burden of this world together through the power of Christ in
us. And that is our hope, that Christ
is faithful, that Christ has already finished the work that
he said he would complete. Paul tells us that we are blameless
because of it. That when we fail, we already
have an advocate with the Father. that Christ has once and for
all time satisfied God's wrath for his people. He has bought
forgiveness for his people. We are no longer guilty. We are
without blame. All because of Christ. And that
is the center, the theme, the whole point, the foundation of
our hope. The work of Christ in his life,
in his death, and in his resurrection. That we cannot earn it, cannot
be bought, because it's already been paid for. And we have been given to the
Son, and we will see that promise
fulfilled to enjoy him forever in glory. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your word,
that through it we may see and understand the glory of Christ,
that we may grasp the work that he has done on our behalf, and that we may see your sovereign
power that we may understand your glory even just a little
bit. You have promised that one day
we will understand it fully as we are glorified with Christ
and enjoy eternal communion with you. And as we go, Continue to teach
us to love. Teach us to bring the love of
Christ to our brothers and sisters, to our neighbors. Give us comfort
and peace and joy that can only be found in him. We pray these
things in his name, amen.