Open your Bibles with me to the
book of Ephesians chapter 1. This is the second message in
going through this passage that begins in verse 3 concerning
blessed union with Christ. As I mentioned last week, I did
an overview from verses 3 to 14, because that's just one long
sentence that helps us to understand the work of the triune Godhead
in the salvation of sinners. We start off with the work of
the Father, and that's what I'm going to deal with this morning,
beginning at verse 3 and going through verse 6. And then it
goes to the work of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, from verse
7 to verse 12 and then the work of the Holy Spirit in verses
13 and 14. But however, as we're segmenting these messages, you
can't talk about the work of the Father without talking about
the work of the Son and the work of the Spirit. They all go together.
But there are specific offices that each person of the Holy
Trinity is concerned with. I'm not going to go into the
Trinity. I did that last week. But we believe in one God, not
three gods, one God and three distinct persons. And we really
cannot explain that. And that doesn't bother me because
the Bible's very clear that God is so high above us that we cannot
bring him down to our level and understand all that is written
of him. And I think about Romans chapter
11 where the apostle ended that on that great song of praise,
you might call it. We're talking about how great
and how high above us God is. But we know it by revelation,
and here's one of those passages of scripture that reveal it plainly.
And that's the issue in this blessed union with Christ. This
passage, if you go through it, you'll see phrases like in Christ. and similar phrases that mean
the same thing. And it's showing us that all
things in eternity and time are founded upon the Lord Jesus Christ
in the glory of His person and the power and success of His
finished work. And that's why I had Brother
Mark read that John 14. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Now think about that. We who
are sinful people, because of what Christ accomplished on Calvary,
can have the privilege and the honor of calling the Lord God
our Father. And without Christ, you can't
do that. The only ones who can claim that God is truly our Father,
our Heavenly Father, our Saving Father, Gracious, Merciful Father,
are those who can claim a saving union with Jesus Christ, and
that saving union with Christ is evidenced by God-given faith
in Christ. And the apostle will speak more
on that in chapter two. You know the verse, for by grace
are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves.
Faith is not natural to us. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. It means he doesn't believe them.
And the only way we're gonna believe them is God gives us
the gift of faith and he gives it by his Spirit through the
Word in our new birth. Gives us eyes to see and ears
to hear. And apart from that, we're not
gonna see it or hear it or believe it. The Bible teaches us that
of all who believe in him, Our union with Christ, and this is
where I want to go this morning on the work of the Father. Our
union with Christ has been a reality in the mind, the purpose, and
the plan of God from eternity. Now, chew on that for a while.
That's amazing, isn't it? But that's the truth. It didn't really have a beginning.
We know from scriptural testimony that it was before the world
began. And it cannot be broken. In the
mind of a holy God, God who is our Father. This is an eternal
union. This blessed union with Christ
is an eternal union. And look at verse three. He talks
about blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God the Father is the only source originator of our salvation. It's all by His will. Not by
man's will. Salvation's not conditioned on
our wills, what we decide to do. It's conditioned on God's
will. He said, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy. I'll be gracious to whom I'll
be gracious. So therefore it's not of him
that runneth, nor of him that willeth, but of God that showeth
mercy. The Father represents the supreme authority, the sovereignty
of the Godhead. And salvation is of the Lord.
It's by God's will, not man's. It's by God's love, not man's. And it's an unconditional love
towards us. We don't deserve it. We don't
earn it. God's love is not a response to anything we do or think or
say. Our love for him is our response
that is God's. guaranteed in the power of the
Spirit, looking to Christ, coming to the Father through the Lord
Jesus Christ. I read that over in Matthew 11, where the Lord
Himself said it plainly when He was talking about how the
Father had revealed this truth unto babes and hid it from those
who are high-minded, basically. And that's all of us by nature.
He says there in verse 27 of Matthew 11, all things are delivered
unto me of my Father. Now that speaks of the submission
of the Son to the Father, not in nature of character. The Father, the Son, and the
Spirit are equal in deity, the nature of deity. But the Son
became obedient to the Father, submissive to the Father for
the purposes of saving sinners like us. Now think about that. And Philippians 2 describes that
so well. He condescended to be made like
unto us. Servant. He became a servant.
And that wasn't the fullness of his condescension. He went
further. He became obedient even to the
death of the cross to save us. Now think of how amazing that
is. I mean, that ought to rock your
boat. I'm serious. And he says, all things are delivered
unto me of my father and no man knoweth the son but the father.
You're not gonna know the son savingly unless the father has
purposed before the foundation of world to reveal him unto you. And he says, neither knoweth
any man the father save the son. You're not gonna know the son,
know the father except through the son. and he to whomsoever
the Son will reveal him. It's the sovereign will of God
Almighty. Christ said in John chapter 17,
this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the true and
living God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. So it's
God's mercy and God's grace found only in the Lord Jesus Christ
and what he accomplished, what Christ accomplished in time,
on that cross. You see, issues of eternity and
time are just mind-boggling. What God purposed in eternity
and his eternal mind never changes. God doesn't change his mind.
He doesn't need to. He's perfection. But what God
purposed in time will have its fulfillment in time according
to his will. He's working all things after
the counsel of his own will, Ephesians 1.11. And they're not
against each other. You know, some preachers act
like that eternity and time are opposed to each other. God can't
do this in eternity, or He can't do this... Forget all that. It's all of God's praise and
all of His glory. Look at verse 3. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father and the Son,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings which come
to us by application of the Spirit in heavenly places in Christ. Now that's speaking of our eternal
union with Christ. And how do you know that eternal
union? Well, it's again, it's what God purposed and planned
and has existed in His eternal mind all along. And it's never
changed. There was never a point in time
that God changed his mind. Listen to this. This is 2 Timothy
chapter 1. I'll just read this to you. Verse
8. Paul is saying to young Timothy,
he says, don't be ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord,
nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God. Verse nine, who
hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Well,
somebody asked me one time, said, well, does that mean we're born
saved? In the mind of God, but not in our own persons, we're
not. We're born lost. We fell in Adam into a state
of sin and death and depravity. We're born lost. The lost sheep. The shepherd comes and finds
us and brings us into the fold by the power of his word. That's
what he says in verse 10 there. He says, but is now made manifest
by the appearing of our savior Jesus Christ who hath abolished
death and hath brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. And look at verse four. Here
he speaks of the blessed, glorious doctrine of election. He says,
according as he hath chosen us, now how did he choose us? In
Christ. I've often said it this way,
that everything that God has in his immutable, eternal mind,
is founded upon His justice satisfied by the Lord Jesus Christ when
it comes to salvation. So He chose us in Him. In other
words, God's choice of His people was not just arbitrary. He chose His people in Christ. He chose them as vessels of mercy
before the foundation of the world, before this world was
ever created. The creation of this world is
an act of God in time. But it was always in his eternal
mind. And it says that we should be
holy and without blame before him in love. Now think about
this. Before the foundation of the
world, God chose a people. Not for any reason or cause in
themselves. God did not look down through
a telescope of time and foresee what we would do or what we would
be. God made us what we are. He brought us to be what we are.
It's all his work. In the book of Revelation in
chapter 13, in verse eight, it speaks of those who, because
of their unbelief, will follow the beast, the false prophet,
and who will worship him instead of worshiping the God of the
Bible. And it says this about them.
Their names are not written in the Lamb's book of life, the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Christ being slain
in time was always in the mind and purpose of God. And the names
of those for whom he would be slain on that cross, they were
always in God's mind, in his mind of grace, in his mind of
mercy. And Revelation 21, 27 says this,
talking about the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem, the kingdom
of God. It says, and there shall in no
wise enter into that city anything that defileth, neither whatsoever
worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they which are written
in the Lamb's book of life. I think I told you about a preacher
I was listening to on television one time. And I was just flipping
around and I heard him quote, or read from Revelation 13 about
the Lamb's Book of Life. So I decided to stop and say,
well, let's see what he says about that. And here's what he
said. And we were talking about this
the other day. He said, we can surmise. Now
that was his first mistake. We cannot surmise. We have to
read what God says. You go to surmising, you go right
out of it. He said, we can surmise that
when you're born, God writes your name in the Lamb's Book
of Life. And then when you commit the first sin, he erases your
name out. And then if you ever come to
accept Jesus as your personal Savior, he'll put your name back
in. Now where is that in the Book
of Life here? It's not. If you're a believer, think about
this. If you truly believe the gospel,
if you've been given the gift of faith and repentance of dead
works, if you're looking to Christ alone for all salvation, you're
a miracle of grace, sovereign grace. That's what you are. And if you truly believe, if
you're a miracle of grace who truly believes in the Lord Jesus
Christ as he's identified and distinguished in this word as
the Lord our righteousness, God manifest in the flesh. That's
why we can only know the Father through the Son, because the
Son is God manifest in the flesh. And that He died for His people,
and that every sinner for whom He died, He washed away their
sins. He brought in an everlasting
righteousness. They cannot perish. They must be brought to faith
in Christ. If you really believe in Him, Your name was written
in the Lamb's Book of Life before this world began. Now, I don't
believe that's a literal book. I believe that's meta. It's in
the mind of God. And you were never out of it.
He didn't erase your name out. Even when we fell in Adam, God
didn't erase our names out of the Lamb's Book of Life. They're
right there in his mind, in his heart, you might say. But we
did fall. We fell into sin and death. Look
at verse four again. This is the reality in the mind
of God, according as he has chosen us in him, in Christ, before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy. The word
holy means separate. And without blame, that means
justified. Cannot be charged. Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that died. Yea, rather He's risen again.
Seated at the right hand of the Father. Making intercession.
And before Him in love. God's elect have always been
objects of God's sovereign love. Look at Romans 9 with me. This passage here. is one that
is mainly avoided by most who call themselves Christian. They
don't want to deal with it. It deals with God's sovereignty
in choosing a people. Talks about God's hatred. Jacob
have I loved, Esau have I hated. They say God doesn't hate anybody. Well, God says he hated Esau.
Back over in Psalm 5 it says he hates all workers of iniquity.
Somebody asked me one time, said, well, aren't we workers of iniquity?
Not in that sense. Now, we're sinners. But the workers
of iniquity that he's speaking of there are those who live and
die in unbelief. It's those to whom sin is imputed,
charged, accounted. But who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? And this is what he says, I quoted
this, look at verse 15. He says, he said to Moses, I'll
have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. So then it's not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that shall with mercy.
Sovereign mercy, there's no other kind. Sovereign grace, there's
no other kind. So and people come back and say
well, that's not fair. That's unjust well Paul gives
you the only answer that the Bible gives you right here Romans
chapter 9 This is God's answer and look at verse 22 He says
what if God willing to show his wrath? Now his wrath is his just
punishment against sinners to whom sin is imputed And to make
his power known, endured with much longsuffering, the vessels
of wrath fitted or made up to destruction, that's the non-elect,
the reprobate. And verse 23, look at this. And
that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels
of mercy, which he had afore, prior, before, prepared unto
glory. And again, go back to our text
now, Ephesians. We did fall into a state of sin
and death in Adam. Born lost. Lost in our sins. Spiritually dead. Totally depraved. That's why we must be born again.
Christ redeemed us on the cross by the blood that he shed. And
from his blood comes life given to his people. And look at Ephesians
2. Look at verse 1. Listen to this. And you hath
he quickened, made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.
In other words, those who were formerly dead by nature, spiritually
dead, he's quickened. That's the new birth. Regeneration
and conversion. How do you know you were spiritually
dead in trespasses and sins? Look at verse two, wherein in
time past you walked according to the course of this world.
Now, walking according to the course of this world means the
religious world too. Not just the immoral world, as
men say it, false religion. According to the prince of the
power of the air, that's Satan, The spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience, in the Bible, children of disobedience
are unbelievers, among whom also we all had our conversation,
our walk, our conduct in times past in the lust of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
by nature. Now anytime you see that term
by nature, it means as we were naturally born in sin and death. And what he's saying here is,
he says, we're by nature the children of wrath even as others.
He's not saying we were under God's wrath. We deserved it.
The only reason that the elect of God are not under his wrath
is because of what Christ would come and do in time on that cross. We deserved wrath. We earned
wrath. And by nature, children of wrath
even as others, as we were naturally born, we're no different. than
the children of wrath. No different. Now what does that
do for us? Thank God for his mercy. That's what it does. Amazing
grace. Why would God have mercy on a
sinner like me? Oh publican, God be merciful
to me, the sinner. God wasn't obligated to do that
because of anything that I've done or were or tried to do.
It was all according to His grace. Do you know that God loves His
people with an everlasting love? It never changed. Do you know that the mercy of
the Lord is from everlasting, Psalm 103, 17, listen to this.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto children's
children. And why was all this given? Verse
four, that we should be holy. As I said, to be holy means to
be separate. God separated us out in eternity
when he chose us in Christ. He separates us out at the cross
when Christ died for our sins. He separates us out when we're
born again and brings us to believe the gospel. All of that. And then to be holy is to be
separate, to be without blame is to be justified. You know
what it is to be justified? It means to be forgiven of all
our sins on a just ground, a righteous ground. And what is that just
and righteous ground? The blood of Jesus Christ. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood. And you know what? The blood
has washed them all away. The forgiveness of sins. He's
going to mention that here in Ephesians 1 when he talks about
the redemption. Verse 7, in whom we have redemption
through Christ's blood. The forgiveness of sins. That's
it. Are you a sinner? Am I a sinner? What hope do we have to be forgiven? You know, we go through life
and we have our problems, we have our misunderstandings, and
you know we have a tough time sometimes forgiving people, don't
we? I do. Now listen, I'm not bragging
about that. That's to my shame. But not God. In His eternal mind,
That's always been the way in Christ. Because we've been eternally
united to Him. Now again, don't get me wrong,
that doesn't mean that we're born in a saved state. Our state before God has fallen
in Adam is one of, by nature, children of wrath, alienated
by God. But you know what? Even when
we were enemies, the Bible says in Romans 5, even when we were
enemies of God, Christ died for the ungodly. And look at this,
go back to Ephesians 2 there. When he says, we were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others, look at verse four. But
God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved
us. His love had no beginning, and
thank God it has no end. Even when we were dead in sins,
He quickened us together with Christ. Now I'll get to that
later. But that's talking about the death of Christ. He didn't
begin to love us when Christ died. His love sent Christ to
die for us. Here in His love. Not that we
loved Him, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. To be without blame, to be justified
is to be forgiven. And to be without blame, to be
justified, My friend is to be declared righteous in the sight
of God, in his eternal mind. And it never changed. That's
our standing before God in Christ. Now our state changed. Our life
in this world. Everything, you know, this is
the thing about time and eternity. We really don't know anything
about eternity except what the Bible tells us. We can't figure
it out. And here's the point. We don't
even have a language to describe eternity. Everything we talk
about, everything we write about, everything we read about, everything
we see is time-bound, isn't it? I don't know anything but change.
And God changes not. He is immutable. If you think
about that too long, you'll get a headache. It's just awesome,
isn't it? Colossians 121 says this. It
says, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your
mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. That's amazing. Without blame,
unblameable. And we were reconciled in the
body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable. Can't be blamed. Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Unreprovable in his sight. The Bible talks about Christ
himself. How through his blood, Through
the eternal spirit, he offered himself without spot to God. He purged our conscience from
dead works to serve the living God. We're redeemed with the
precious blood of Christ as of a lamp without spot and without
blemish. Faultless and without fault.
There has always been the reality in the mind of our Heavenly Father
as He chose us, ordained us, and viewed us in the glorious
person and finished work of His Son, which was to be accomplished
in time. In the fullness of the time,
God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
to redeem them that were under the law. Look at verse five of
Ephesians 1. Having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. I've told you about the fellow
who was watching our television program, and he heard me talking
about predestination. And he called me up, and I answered
the phone. We got to talking about it, and
he said, I want you to know, though, he said, I don't believe
in that predestination. Oh, I said, you don't. He said,
no. I said, oh, you don't believe the word of God then. Oh, no,
I believe every word in the word of God. I said, well, you don't
believe that word, because right there it is, and in other places. Don't say you don't believe predestination.
Find out what it means. Well, here it is. In the eternal
mind of our Heavenly Father, it's always been. It didn't start
at a certain calendar date. He predestinated. Foreordained
is what that means. unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will.
It was his will, not our will. This all happens before the child
of God knows anything about this. Consider the process of adoption
just for a second. First, there must be an orphan
child. Am I right? Gotta be an orphan
child. Well, God took care of that. He chose us. He created
the world. He put man in it, and we all fell in at him. Unworthy,
orphaned children by nature. Next, there's got to be a parent
willing to choose this unworthy child and adopt that child. Well,
he said it here, according to the good pleasure of his will.
That's it. And this all happens again before
the child knows anything about all this. And then all legal
obstacles must be removed and all legal means must be provided
for that willing parent to adopt that unworthy child. By Jesus
Christ is the answer there. See, for example, if you go to
adopt a child, you gotta make sure that that child doesn't
have parents somewhere else who have a legal bind upon him. And then the adoption agency
wants to know, do you have the wherewithal to raise and take
care of this child? Well, in Jesus Christ, we have
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. And think about this. Remember the Lamb's Book of Life?
That is the Lamb slain. That's the basis, the ground
of our justification. His righteousness imputed to
us. Our sins were imputed to Christ. His righteousness imputed
to us. That's the ground. All legal
obstacles removed. All provisions brought in. We
have it all. And then lastly, verse six, this
is all. Here's the be all and the end
of it all. To the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath what? made us accepted in the beloved. Accepted in Christ. That's the
ultimate purpose and end of all things in eternity and time.
God's glory in his free sovereign grace to save his people through
Christ. All of it. And he made us accepted
in the beloved. This is the reality of how God
has always viewed his elect in Christ. You remember, he said, the beloved
there. Is there any doubt in your mind that that's speaking
of Christ? That's how God has always accepted his people, in
any capacity. Think about this, when Christ
was baptized in Matthew chapter three, it says when he was baptized,
he went straight up out of the water, and lo, the heavens were
opened unto him. He saw the Spirit descending
like a dove, and light upon him, and lo, a voice from heaven saying,
this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. How can God ever, at any time,
be pleased with sinners like us? It's only through Christ. It's only by the merits of His
righteousness alone that God can accept us. And that standing
before God has never changed in the eternal, immutable mind
of God. Now again, our state in time
did change. We fell in Adam, born lost, And
our state changes again when God the Holy Spirit brings us
into the family of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved, the scripture says. There's no, eternity
and time in the purpose of God are not enemies. Everything that God purposed
before time, he accomplishes in time. according to the everlasting
covenant of His grace conditioned on Christ. Well, with that in
mind, let's turn to hymn number 10. We'll sing this as a closing
hymn. Oh God, our help in ages past.