Open your Bibles, if you would, to the Book of Galatians. The Book of Galatians. The name of the message is God's Good Pleasure. God's Good Pleasure. Now, as I was studying this, I was just flying high. I was flying high, because even more became apparent, even more, in an even deeper way.

And this is what happens, as the Lord reveals to us, as we need it. The wondrous aspects of salvation through Christ alone, plus nothing. But this aspect of that it pleased God, He saved us according to His good pleasure. And we are going to see, because He willed it, He chose us.

Just thinking, here we are sinners. I was talking to Dustin yesterday and I said, Dustin, the only difference between the folks, we and our church and everyone else is we're just safe sinners. And he's been around religion enough. He's seen religion and he's seen how people are. And I said, the wonderful thing with your grandma was she's just a sinner saved by grace and she just lived her life before you.

Warts and all, right? And that's what we do. And he says, man, I like that, the fact that you guys don't put anything on. I said, no, this is who we are. We're sinners saved by grace. We're not on a pedestal. No, as a matter of fact, you come in here and you're gonna be rubbing shoulders with a bunch of sinners who've been saved by the mercy of God, right? And that's what we are, aren't we?

And Paul's writing to save sinners at Ephesus. Be like if Marvin wrote a letter to us up here. He'd be writing to the saints at Elmont. Save sinners in Elmont. This specific church. So he's writing though, and as we've studied this book, there's probably multiple churches at Ephesus, because we find out in the book of Acts there's multiple elders in Ephesus, which means there's probably multiple preachers preaching the gospel. It's a huge city, remember? It's like half a million people. So the gospel's just spread like wildfire. So here he is.

Paul's writing to The saints at Ephesus, they're Gentile believers, they're part of the Roman system, so they know the importance of citizenship, because Roman citizenship is prized in those times. So, now they're citizens of heaven now. And all those privileges, see, they would really understand that, because all those privileges of being a citizen of Rome that came, well, even more, with being a citizen of heaven, all spiritual blessings in Christ.

And it's all planned and purposed according to the good pleasure of God's will. That's what's amazing about it. I think that's what left me most in awe of this section, again, because it's all according to the good pleasure of God's will. Why are we saved? Because God willed it. People like to talk about will, don't they, in this world? Our will can't do nothing. Our will can't even cure a toothache, can it? No. But let's read verses 3 to 7 and just marvel at what's written here.

Blessed be God. So Paul's just praising God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all the spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. This is wondrous. This is absolutely wondrous. Now, Paul deals with the means of salvation. He sets it here before us.

God the Father predestinated us into the adoption of sons in Christ. Then he chose us in Christ. Right? And then Christ came and died for us and we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ. And then the Holy Spirit implies that wondrous salvation, all according to the plan and purpose of God, to us, and you must be born again. And then we're given faith to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that wonderful? It's wonderful. See, our salvation was purpose-decreed, prepared by the Father in His eternal counsel with the Son, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And you know what?

I want this to stick with us. It's all according to the good pleasure of His will. Now, let's let that sink in a little. It's all according to the good pleasure of His will. If we weren't one of His chosen people, it wouldn't be. We are His people because He willed us to be His people. It has, and think of this, and I've said this in the past, and it came up in the commentaries I was reading. Gail brought it out, and Hawker brought it out. It was wonderful. This was all done before we were ever born.

So there's no cause in us. This wondrous salvation we have in Christ is all according to the good pleasure of God's will. We are saved. We are redeemed by the blood of Christ. We are born again by the Holy Spirit of God. According to the good pleasure of God's will from eternity.

Now why people? Why people would scoff against that? and would hate that truth. I don't understand now as a born-again Christian, but I have to, I just have to look back to before the Lord saved me when I was religious. And I hated that truth when it was proposed to me. You mean God sends people to hell?

And that fellow just smiled at me, that preacher just smiled at me, says, no, God chooses to save some. You know, leave the others alone. My oh my and now to know that we're we're receivers of that grace blessing in christ because It's all according to the good pleasure of his will I'll tell you what It'll leave you in awe beloved And all this was done All this was done in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we might be, that we will be, holy and without blame before God and love. Sinners made holy. Bonafide rebels subdued and turned into trophies of God's grace, all because it pleased God to do so.

Now, that gets you excited, doesn't it, Brother Brian? That's something to get... I love Brian. I look at Brian, he's just smiling. I love it. And it's true. That's something to smile about. That's something to get excited about, isn't it? Isn't that wondrous? Just because it pleases Him to do so.

Oh, my God in eternity past determined to have a holy people. Before we were ever born. He determined to have a holy people. The only way sinners can be holy is in Christ, right? And there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and the people that populate that new heaven and new earth are holy people. Now, you ask any of us if we're holy, and we say, well, God declares us holy, but we sure don't feel holy.

I'm looking at St. Brian. I'm looking at St. Karen, St. Marsha, St. Chris. Ain't that wonderful? What's a saint in the scriptures? A holy one. You feel like St. Karen's sister? I don't feel like St. Wayne either. But we are though. That's what God declares us. In Christ. Amen. Amen. That's the key right there. In Christ.

And all this was purposed and planned before the foundation of the world. Before there was ever heaven and earth and the stars. God purposed to save us. according to his good pleasure. Now, I'll tell you why. It don't get any better than that, does it? That's just wondrous, but it's true.

We're chosen in Christ because the Father predestinated us to the adoption of sons, of his children. Through Christ, again, as you said, sister, it's always through Christ, through Christ. All spiritual blessings are in Christ. We're chosen in Christ. It's always Christ. Outside of Christ, there's no favor with God, right? In Christ, all the favor of God. So that means it's not dependent upon us, does it? Now I ask you, do we desire to live a life for Christ, a holy life? Of course we do, don't we, Sister Barb? We desire to live for our King. We do, and we do each and every day. But as I told Dustin, I'm just a sinner saved by grace. The only one who's made me to differ from anyone else is Christ. And Christ alone. And it's true for you if you're a born-again believer.

It's true for all of us. It's all according to the good pleasure of His will. And when was that will exercised? before the foundation of the world. Does that depend upon us at all? Nothing, eh? Nothing. It's all within God. Think of this. And it has nothing to do, and no influence from outside. Leaders nowadays, they can be influenced by their advisors, right? Whether it be good or bad. There's no outside influence.

And nothing in us, no merit in us, that God would choose us. It's all according to His good pleasure, according to His will and purpose. To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in Christ. Ain't that wonderful? That's it. So we have nobody to glory in but Christ. We have no room for boasting, do we? Except to boast in Christ. You see how it strips us? And it builds us back up, the gospel builds us back up in Christ? Because it's all about Him. You know, a lot of, a lot of division in the world, even of professing Christianity or even true Christianity, because there's division within true Christianity too. I'll tell you why. Because we're a bunch of sinners. That would all be cleared up if we just focused on Christ and Him alone and the preaching of Christ and not getting caught up in all these different things.

I noticed there's some churches out there that they do, they do sermon after sermon on the confessions. What the confessions say. You know what that is? That's called indoctrination. Being indoctrinated to whatever system they're trying to put before you. Now the confessions are good. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm not saying that at all. But we ought to preach Christ. We have to preach Christ. What did Paul say? He didn't say, I come to preach creed and confessions to you, did he? He said, I come to preach Christ. Simple message of Christ in him crucified. In a simple language. Not so lofty that people can't understand it. You know, I'm a pretty simple guy. And I can only tell you, I can only tell you what I know.

And I tell you what, I know Christ saved my soul. Right? I know Christ saved my soul. Brother Charlie said that, too. I know Christ saved my soul. And so I'm going to tell everyone about that. I'm going to tell other sinners where to find bread. Oh, here's Christ. I'm not going to get mixed up with different doctrines, you believe, because when I preach Christ, I'm going to be preaching doctrine. Right? I will. Because that's all part of it. But it's Christ's doctrine. All right, Chris, we talked about it. Just keep our eyes on Christ. Spurgeon used to say it. When you write a sermon, make a beeline to Christ and just stay there. Just stay there.

And people will know. People can come to five or six sermons that I preach and know everything I believe. Joe Terrell, I got that from Joe Terrell. That's not original. And Joe's right, though. You listen to five sermons from a preacher, and you know exactly what they believe. A true preacher.

Because you know what they're going to do? They're going to put Christ before you. They're not going to tell you what you have to do. They're going to put Christ. And they're going to say, beloved, you're saved according to the good pleasure of God's will.

And that's before your will was even activated. You know why? Because it happened before the foundation of the world. When was our supposed will activated? Well, when we conceived, right? We just don't know about it. But I'll tell you why. It doesn't take long for a baby to let you know what their will is. And that baby's hungry, it lets you know it's hungry, doesn't it? And that baby needs to be changed, it lets you know when it needs to be changed. And when it gets older, it learns, I don't want to share.

Right? And our will is bound to our nature, right? So we're all born dead in trespasses and sins. You must be born again. And that's all according to God's good pleasure and according to his will. So we see God the Father has accepted us in Christ. It's absolutely amazing. So what I want us to really consider today is the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of God's will. This wonderful and amazing act of God, the Father making we who believe sons of God was all by Christ Jesus.

Again, he's the center. Outside of Christ, there's no sonship. Outside of Christ, there's no acceptance before God. Outside of Christ, there's no salvation for sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ, by his perfect sin-atoning work on the cross, satisfied the just requirements of God's law for us, which we broke.

We are the lawbreakers. We're the lawbreakers. He's perfect. He's sinless. He's spotless. My. But by Christ's sacrificial death, his perfect sin of Tony worked through his blood and righteousness. He made it possible for God to show mercy to sinners. And still uphold his justice. And his law. And where his wrath would be appeased. Where his wrath would be appeased. against us. So we're redeemed through the blood of Christ Jesus, our Lord. We're adopted into the family of God and accepted by Jesus Christ, or by God through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of God's will, to the praise and the glory of His grace.

So just think upon that. Just think of this. According to the good pleasure of His will, Now, good pleasure there in the Greek is one word. It's one word. It means will, choice, delight. Delight. Brother Brian, we're God's delight. Pleasure. Pleasure. Satisfaction and desire.

It was God's desire that He would have a people, so He executed that according to His will and purpose. And God delights in us in Christ, because He delights in the Son, doesn't He? Therefore, He delights in all who are in His Son. My. Isn't this wondrous? And he's had mercy on whom here have mercy. He's pardoned whom he will. According to his good pleasure, which is according to his will. Choice.

These are in the Greek. They're undeniable. You say, I don't believe that. Well, it's undeniable. It's undeniable. If you don't believe it, you don't believe what the Bible says. And I was there. Chris, we were there. But now, don't we embrace that brother Brian? Oh, it's the most wondrous thing because we know we never would have chosen Christ. But praise God he chose us.

According to the good pleasure of his will. His will. His will. Whose will is supreme? Man thinks, well, my will is supreme. I can do whatever I want and this and that and all this. Yeah, according to your nature. Do you know the only true free will is the free will of God? Mm-hmm.

He does whatever he wants. And none can stay his hand. And no one can say, what are you doing? And he does that with the armies of heaven, all the angels, at his beck and call. Satan even has to come in and ask permission to talk to him. Just a created being. And we're made a little lower than the angels. And we can't save ourselves.

So the Son of God becomes a man and comes to this world to save us from our sins according to the good pleasure of God's will. How can we not but praise Him? How can we not but our hearts overflow with love for Him? See, religion peddles a salvation that you're a part of. Well, we can't, no human can save us. And no human can save themselves. But we look to the one who became a man, the God-man, God in the flesh, who saved his people from their sins. And all who he saved, the Holy Spirit will regenerate. And they're going to cry, Abba, Father. Why do we cry, Abba, Father?

According to the good pleasure of his will. So really when we start looking into those things, when we start thinking action and justification, according to the good pleasure of His will. We can just attach that to all those things, can't we? Right? My! And His will will be accomplished, right? No one can thwart it, can they? No one can stop it. Nope.

According to the good pleasure of His will. So let us marvel at what the Greek brings forth with this one word. For good pleasure. It brings forth that it was God's will and choice and his delight. His delight. His pleasure. His satisfaction. And his desire. That's using all those words from that Greek word.

Right? To. predestinate we who are as born-again children washed in the blood of Christ unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. As Scott Richardson used to say, put that in your pipe and smoke it. Right? Man. There it is. That's biblical truth presented. Right?

No wonder we're in awe of what Christ done for us. This is amazing. And He chose us. After He predestined us unto children, He chose us in Christ. Before the foundation of the world. That we should be holy. And without blame before Him in love. Again, in Christ.

And then He sends Christ. The Word of God, he sends the Word of God, the second person of the Trinity, to become a man, to redeem us, to die for us, to save us from our sins, to obtain a eternal redemption for us. And then he justified us in Christ when he rose Christ from the grave.

He was risen for our justification. He's sinless, right? In his life and his death. He offered himself up in our room and place. Our great sin bearer. The sinless one bearing our sins. Redeeming us with his precious blood. Then God rose him up in the third day for our justification. My. And then he sends his Holy Spirit down.

And here we were, dead. Graveyard dead. We may have been religious, but we were lost. We may not have been religious, but we were lost. And God sent a preacher. And we heard those words alive. And God the Holy Spirit revealed to us that we're just sinners. Remember that? And then, the bomb of Gilead. Christ died for sinners.

Born again. Given faith to believe. I believe. I believe. I trust you Lord now. Isn't that amazing? All according to the good pleasure of God's will. I'm never going to get over that, Sister Barbara. I'm never going to get over that. That's just amazing, isn't it? Now expositores, some expositores give the meaning of the Greek word for good pleasure as we're going to see it very similar, goodwill, delight, satisfaction, purpose, counsel.

So may we marvel, beloved God, at God's great mercy towards us in Christ. And it's manifested to us. See, we talk about the mercy of God, we talk about the love of God, but God already manifested that to us when Christ died in our room and place. He manifested that great eternal love by sending his own son to die in our room and place. That was, again, you've heard me say, the greatest manifestation of love to all the world, right? But we don't see it unless He gives us eyes to see and ears to hear. And that's what the Holy Spirit did, didn't He?

And we're born again. It's beautiful. All according to the good pleasure of God's will. You hear, if you notice I'm repeating that, because it's true. It's true, it's wonderful, isn't it? So someone asks you, well, why did God save you? Well, it was according to the good pleasure of His will.

Yeah, I can't save myself. I can't save you, who I'm talking to, right? If you're talking to someone about Christ, I can't save you either. But I can tell you about one who can save everyone who comes to Him. The Lord Jesus Christ. And if he saves you, it's according to the good pleasure of God's will.

My! This gets better and better, doesn't it? It gets better and better. Oh my. Now see the word will in verse 5. According to the good pleasure of his will. The word will there in the Greek means a desire which proceeds from one's heart or emotions. I'll read that again. A desire which proceeds from one's heart or emotions, and then the Greek fell out of this, all according to God's sovereign unmerited action. My.

That's amazing. This verse brings forth the wonders of divine election by expressing the fact that the election in God's foreordaining us unto the adoption of sons are not due to anything in us. There's a lie out there that God looked down through time and saw who would choose him and then he chose him. That's a lie from the pit of hell. I'm telling you. Because that puts a reason in man that God would save us. But there's no reason in us that God would save us.

It's all according, that's it, to the good pleasure of God's will. Isn't it wondrous? It's wondrous. not due to anything in us, but all according to God's will and purpose. And this shows us that this is an act of pure, sovereign, free grace. Pure, sovereign, free grace. God's grace, which is sovereign grace. And grace is free, right? For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, not of something we can do, lest any man should boast. See how it all ties in? And that's in the same book we're reading right here too, right? So Paul's laying the foundation, that salvation's of the Lord. And then he's going to tell us in chapter 2, we're graveyard dead. We can't save ourselves.

Oh my. But God, verse 4, chapter 2, who's rich in mercy. Oh, it's beautiful, beloved. Now there's one more nugget. We got about a few minutes here. One more nugget in here. One more gem in this verse. There's way more. But this is just one more that I saw, okay? Okay? And this knocks our socks off.

Look at verse 5 again. Now marvel at this wonderful truth set before us right here. This predestination by God for us to be his children is said to be to himself. See, we can read this verse and go right over that. To himself. To himself. To Jehovah in his threefold person. To God the Father, to God the Son, to God the Holy Spirit.

Salvations of the Lord. It's all of the Lord. And all this happened according to the good pleasure of God's will, God the Father's will, God the Son's will, God the Holy Spirit's will. According to the good pleasure of His will and to the praise of the glory of His grace. So people who are God's people, and these are weighty things we're looking at here, are most blessed And most beloved, God's elect are the most beloved people to him. There are people saved to himself, to the praise and the glory of his grace. A people of his choosing, personally. Personally, to himself for his good pleasure. What matchless grace is set before us?

Listen to these words. I'm going to read a couple, I'm going to read a couple portions from the Old Testament. Isaiah 43, 21. This people have I formed for myself. We just read about that. This people have I formed for myself, our Lord says. They shall show forth my praise. Isaiah 43, 21. And then this one. Know that Jehovah hath set apart him that is godly for himself. Now let's get a handle on that. He chose each one of us for himself. And that's in Psalm 4-3. And then there's another one in Psalm 135-4. It says this, Do you notice himself was mentioned in all those? Who's the Israel of God? God's elect.

Let us walk out of here today going, in awe and wonder, God chose me for himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace. And let us meditate on this wonderful truth all this week. This is truth for himself. May we delight in this wonderful fact. This is a fact. This isn't just something speculation. This is a fact. God chose us for himself. He redeemed us for himself. He regenerated us for himself.

And he's going to take us home to be with him forever for himself. to the praise of the glory of his grace according to the good pleasure let me say according to the good pleasure of his will amen and amen ain't that wonderful brother travis can you close us in prayer