Ephesians 1:3-6 • Longer Than There Have Been Fish
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
One of the things I enjoy most about these Reformation services is the music, the richness, the variety, what we're able to do together as a church is wonderful celebration of the unity that we have in Christ in the diversity of our churches and the diversity of our peoples. It's great to be able to worship together as one in this place and to celebrate together the mercies of our Lord in Jesus.
We had this evening, I just have to say also, the delight of having Craig Courtney.
We've had his music in our churches, all of us, for years and now to have the composer of so much rich and poignant and good music here with us. Craig, thank you for being with us and directing our choir.
Did you sneak a peek at the text?
Ephesians 1, verses 3 through 6.
Do you know the subject that's there?
Predestination.
It's in the Bible.
Why would we speak on predestination at a Reformation Day service where we're trying to get together?
Well, because it's the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin.
And if John Calvin was known for anything, what was he known for?
Predestination.
I mean, to honor the man, we have to address the subject, and it's actually a privilege to do so because even though he is thought to have advocated so much the doctrine of predestination, what is not remembered quite so well is how humble he was in his thoughts,
how reticent to reach conclusions, and how ready to acknowledge over and over again mysteries past finding out.
He actually wrote in the Institutes in the third chapter, "For it is not right for man unreservedly to search out things that the Lord has willed to be hid in Himself."
That through this doctrine also, God intends to fill us with wonder.
We don't have all the answers.
We have purpose, a purpose that the apostle is about to make clear here.
B.B. Warfield, that great 19th and early 20th century theologian said, "Calvin truly caught really the resonance of the apostle Paul when he was not so concerned to speak about God's sovereignty when he addressed this subject as to speak of God's fatherhood."
It is in that context that the apostle Paul actually speaks. Look, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3, "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."
Let's pray together.
Father, in this brief passage, you speak so clearly of Your love for Your son.
He is Your beloved.
And yet You speak also here of how we are united to Him.
And through Him, we too are Your beloved.
Help us not so much to get caught up in argument as to be lifted in affection to the wonders of Your grace. Help us to see the Father who loves us, we pray.
In Jesus' name, amen.
A few years ago, my son Colin, when he was a senior in high school, got the opportunity he had wanted for three years since his wrestling team began in high school at Westminster Christian Academy. He got the opportunity to go to state. He wrestled through districts and regionals and was the first one ever to actually make it to state in wrestling from Westminster. We were pleased. We were, you know, proud as punch, all that sort of thing.
Until we discovered there was this little conflict.
The weekend of the state wrestling match was the very same weekend Colin was supposed to appear for an exam at a college to win a very prestigious scholarship.
And by the way, a very lucrative one.
Now, we couldn't exactly say to our son who had worked so hard, who'd struggled to reach this place of great achievement in wrestling, you can't go to the wrestling match at state because we want to save some money.
I mean, that wouldn't work, but we did want to save some money.
So we wondered, how do we balance this? We called the school and no, there was not another weekend. If you were going to qualify, that was the weekend you had to be there.
So we came up with this plan.
We would go to the state wrestling championship and Colin would go just as far as he could go.
But regardless of what time of day or night it was, if he got defeated at some point,
we would jump in the car and we would race across four states to get to the college and still try to qualify for the scholarship as best we could. Now, it sounded like a pretty good plan until you get to the point of what you're supposed to pray for.
I mean, you can't pray for him to lose. I mean, what are you supposed to do?
Well, actually, when you're sitting in an arena with thousands of people and you see your son in a struggle against a well-muscled foe, there is absolutely no question what a father does. What do you do?
Go, Colin!
Grab him! Squeeze him! Squash him! You shout for all your worth because you're saying, "You're mine and I'm here for you."
Now, I confess that when you're up in the stands kind of shouting that way, there's some people around you who may not share your affection for your son. They might not have the same attitude toward this shouting that's going on of a father for his son.
You know where I'm going with this?
What's happening in Ephesians 1?
You have a father God shouting to his children, "You are mine!
I have loved you forever. I'm always going to be for you. You are mine!"
And he says it so strongly to his own children that those who may not be his children struggle a bit with the words at times, and even at times we who are his children struggle with the words. But if you'll hear it for its purpose, that what this passage is about is more about a father shouting his love for his children than some doctrinal debate, then maybe you'll understand the purpose and maybe get caught into the affirmation of the love of God more than into an argument about all the implications of a doctrine that is past finding out.
After all, what are we being told here? We are being told to praise God because He is blessing His people as a father.
The initial blessing is simply telling us that God blesses us, His people, with the blessings of the beauty of Christ.
Verse 3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing." Now the words go by so quickly we don't see their significance.
The significance of those two little words in Christ is reminding us that part of the beauty of what God is telling us here about our relationship to Him through Christ comes because we are united to Christ. Now how serious the apostle is about that simple concept that we are united to Christ is revealed by the fact that verses 3 through 14, though they have many commas and periods in your English translations. In Greek, some of you know this is actually one long Greek sentence of about 200 words
as though the apostle is just pouring out what he wants to say of the affection of God for his children.
And that one sentence has as many as 12 times the reference to the fact that we are in Christ, that we are united to Him. Do you think the apostle is serious about this when he mentions it 12 times in one sentence? He is serious about this. And the significance of being in Christ unfolds as the chapter itself unfolds. Why is it so important that we be in Christ? Well verse 3 says, "He is the Lord Jesus Christ."
Why is it important to be united to one who is Lord? Maybe you catch some sense of it as you look further down the chapter at verse 21. Who is this Lord?
He is the one who is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
Think of any power.
Think of any person in this age or the age to come. Jesus is greater. He is over all things. He is sovereign, Lord.
So much so that the apostle ends the chapter with the words that he is the one who fills
all in all.
You're in IV simply says, "He fills everything in every way." If you were to think of the most beautiful sunset you have ever seen, if you could think of the beauty of the leaves yesterday, the blue sky, the shining sun, the hues of gold and red.
It is of Christ. He is Lord over all of it. It is of His hand and of His doing. And it's not just the macro things of creation. The purity of a child's prayer is of Him.
The power of a storm, the wonder of love's passion, all things infinite and intimate that are of beauty are of Him.
And because we are united to Him, they are ours too.
All that is good and beautiful and right, we are united to that. We are part of it. It is ours.
If you could actually perceive the wonder of it, there would be a tune that would begin to go through your head. You'd begin to say, "Heaven, I'm in heaven."
Or you'd sing it better than I did.
And it's actually what the apostle is saying too. The end of verse 3 reminds us that, "He who blesses us in Christ has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places."
Now the commentators immediately divide at this point because they have a question. What is this heavenly place about? Is that Christ's location or is that our location? I mean, is He up in heaven blessing us down here or is there some sense in which we are in heavenly places? To consider it, you have only to look at verse 20 again a little bit later in the passage. Speaking of the power that God has worked in Christ, it says that, "God's great might worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand," where?
In the heavenly places. All right? Now think. Christ is in the heavenly places and you're united to Him. Where are you?
I thought I was right here in Twin Oaks Church in St. Louis. I don't get it. Well, actually, if you look at the second chapter and the sixth verse, the apostle makes the point explicitly.
God raised us up with Christ and seated us, notice the past tense, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Where are you?
And he said, "In heavenly places." I know it says that, but how could that be? It's the understanding the apostle wants us to grasp because we are united to Christ because already the benefits and the power of the beauty of what is is, is ours. Though we are not yet in heaven, we are already experiencing the wonder of that status of being with Christ, as though we are already in heavenly places, though we're not yet there. Now, we can make sense of this. I think of a few years ago when my children were younger and most of our vacations, we go out to a particular cabin that borders on a large set of woods.
And we get used to taking hikes out into the woods from that cabin. One particular evening, I took the kids out, not recognizing how close we were to dark.
So as we got further and further away from the cabin into the woods and I began to recognize the light was going to be departing, I said, "Here's what we need to do so that we're not trying to find our way in absolute dark. Let's just beeline through the woods. We'll not go the regular street. When I go the regular path, we'll just beeline through the woods and head to the cabin. Follow me."
And we walked and we walked and we walked and the kids knew we was lost.
Kept up a brave face, you know, don't want to admit anything. Don't want to scare them.
But you know, just as it got to the point that I knew we were in trouble and I was turning around to the city to the kids, I don't know where, but just as I was turning around, I saw a light through the woods.
It was the cabin.
Now we weren't inside yet, but I was already at peace.
There were still some woods to go through, but I was already calmed down.
We weren't inside, but we were already home.
The Apostle Paul says to this church at Ephesus, "There may still be some darkness. There may still be some woods to go through, but because you're united to the Lord of the universe, who has prepared a way for you, because you're united to Him who's over all things in all places, in all times, because you're united to Him, you're already home,
even though you're not there yet."
It's what Calvin did understand so profoundly when his good friend John Knox lost his wife.
When Calvin wrote to John Knox, "Since you know well the heaven, from whence consolation may come when we are overwhelmed with grief, I have no doubt you will endure."
And when Calvin lost his own wife and three children in infancy, he too wrote, "My friends leave nothing undone to lighten my sorrow.
Still, it would surely have crushed me had not I been extended the help of heaven."
Heaven already come, already here, not yet, but the reality of it so sure, because we're united to the one who is so powerful and so good, because we're united to Him, the benefits, the blessings, the calm, the reality of it is already eroding into our present, already helping us, because we know that we're already seated in heavenly places, united to Him who is raised to that heavenly place.
We don't just have the beauty of Christ. The apostle wants us to know that this Father God has blessed us even with the status of Christ. Do you see that? It's in verse 4.
Here the apostle says, "Even as He chose us in Him," now we'll come back there, I know those are the hard words, "Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, God did this that we should be holy and blameless before Him."
God is promising us Christ status to the point that we even have the purity of Christ.
We are in Christ, the sense of being robed in His righteousness, the sense of being covered by Him, but the effects here are shown we are holy and blameless before God. What does blameless mean?
It means all the blame that would rightly be put against you is taken away in that part of the beauty of the gospel.
When our kids are not as we wished, when our failures are before our eyes, when the immorality that we have sought to avoid catches us again, when the integrity that we said would never leave us under pressure abandon us, and we know we are to blame to hear a declaration from God, "Because you are united to my Son, you are blameless, covered. That which could rightly be put against you is gone, is taken away as far as the east is from the west."
I think of a friend of mine, spiritual leader, whose life frayed and whose resolve left,
who ultimately when he was found out for his immorality was forced out of the ministry for a time.
Bitter, angry, raging, everyone who had anything to do with him.
A few years later as he was going through a process of restoration, I spoke to him. "What are you feeling now?"
And there was such deep humility, such longing for the people of God, such praise for the work of the gospel. And I couldn't help it. I just asked him directly, "What's different about you? I remember the anger. I remember the rage. You were the one caught, but you were angriest at the people who caught you. What happened?"
He said, "What caught my heart was," he said, "a particular song." He said, "It's not in the Trinity hymnal, but these words, "And this shall all my glory be that Jesus is not ashamed of me."
He's not, you know, he's not.
He knows the worst about you and by his own righteous covering has made you blameless before God. You are blameless before the God who loves you as a father.
Not only blameless, do you see the other word?
God's purpose was to make you holy and blameless. This is not just God taking something away, the blame. It's actually providing something in its place. It's that other wonderful half of the gospel, not simply that we have sin taken away, but the righteousness of Christ applied. You can't be holy. I can't be holy. Why can't we be called holy? Why can't that be the purpose of God? Because when we're united to Christ, that which is characteristic of Him becomes ours. God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the what? The righteousness of God.
Christ very righteousness becoming our own. And the consequence is so wonderfully stated in verse 5. He predestined us, oh I know those are the hard words, we'll come back. For what? What's the purpose? He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will. If you were as pure as Jesus, as blameless and as holy, do you recognize what status you would have?
You would have the status of Jesus who is God's beloved.
And that's precisely what the apostle is saying. In verse 2, which we did not read, think of the words as they go by. Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
In verse 3 we're going to be told that He is the Father of Jesus Christ.
But if He's Jesus' Father and He's our Father, then we're in the same family.
And that's the point too.
That God is not just giving us the purity of Jesus. He is giving us the family of Jesus. By a work beyond our own, by a work that God determined to do long ago before we could make it happen, God said, "You're mine. I want you in my family." And He arranged for that to occur, even when He knew the worst about us.
Every now and then at the seminary we have the wonder of we who teach, having students teach us.
Not so many years ago, a couple as they were graduating and were not able to have children of their own wanted to start ministry with a family.
And so in that senior year of seminary began the process of adopting a child.
Identified a mom who was not married and still wanted to bring a child to term and began to work with her. And that mom wanted them to be the parents. I mean there was such joy, anticipation, such buildup until one of those tests revealed that this would be a child was with Patel's syndrome.
That's one of those trisomy syndromes that would mean the child would have various forms of organ as well as physical damage upon birth.
And the question came to these parents who were anticipating adoption. Do you want to adopt? Do you want this child?
It would be expense.
It would be pain.
And as their hearts united to that child, it would be great grief they knew it.
But how had God treated them?
He who knew the worst about them from before the foundation of the world and still said, you're mine.
They said to the mom, we'll adopt this child as our own.
Having all the problems ahead of time, knowing it all, we will call this child our own.
It's just the gospel.
It's just what God does with you and me. I think of not just the problems in my past. I think of the sin I don't even know yet in my life.
To realize God already knows it and yet sent His son to die for it, that I would be blameless and holy, not by my work, but by His.
And being so blameless and so holy, united to His son, He would also call me, just as He calls Jesus, my beloved.
Do you ever think about that someday standing before God in heaven and He would not say to you, I remember that. I know what you did then.
But He, knowing everything about you, would look at you and say, my beloved, welcome.
You're part of the family.
You have been in my heart for a long, long time.
You're mine.
You're my beloved.
As He is declaring us not only to have the status of Christ and the beauty of Christ applied to us, the ultimate thing that the apostle is saying to us here is that all of this is done in Christ alone.
That the Father blesses us with the beauty of Christ, He blesses us with the status of Christ, but ultimately this is done through Christ alone. Now, you know, it can't be a Reformation service without us mentioning the solas, right? We have to talk about sola scriptura, scripture alone, the great calling card of the Reformation, sola fide and sola gradia. But you remember that with all of those messages of being saved by faith alone and by grace alone because of what the scriptures alone attest was the message this is all provided
through Christ alone, solely Christi.
And that's ultimately what's being said here. In verse 6, we are told that everything that has been promised so far is to the praise of God's glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the beloved. Now that word blessed is just the verb form of the word grace again.
It's to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has graced us.
Your NIV translations actually say it's the grace He has freely given.
But of course the question we all have deep in our hearts if we say, "Now wait a second, you mean I can have the beauty and I can have the status of Jesus and it's free."
Well, now how free is free?
And now you're ready for the hard words.
Verse 4, it says, "Free even as the fact that He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world." Notice what's being said. God chose us in Jesus, in Him. God didn't choose us because of anything in us, not because of our righteousness, not because of our goodness, not because we've reached some level of spiritual maturity. God chose us in Jesus.
And this we are told, continuing in verse 4, was before the foundation of the world,
before we were born.
It doesn't have anything to do with our heritage, our birth, our race, our ethnicity, the associations of our lives.
It's not something we can claim that makes us God's. It's rather His claim upon us. Whatever was the decision made, it was made to love us prior to the earth itself being formed. It's before our families had status. It's before our nation had status. It's before anything that we could claim would give us a right to God's love. He said instead, "I'm going to love you."
It's just all in Him. It's not in us. And I know that causes all the questions we'll have because I was like, "Now why Him and not Him?" And can you just not go there for a moment?
And remember to whom the Apostle Paul is writing here, here is not the Apostle writing to the church at Ephesus like Twin Oaks Presbyterian Church.
Here all these believers in these little house churches, in the ancient metropolis of Ephesus, a great trading port where there are people from different nations and ethnicities that are coming together. And some of them are beginning to believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, the one who by His death upon the cross took away their sin. And by His rising again, the victor not only gave them the knowledge that He was Lord,
but became the victor over death itself, the consequences of sin so that His righteousness could be ours. And they're beginning to believe that and gather together. And outside the little house, they look across the street and there is this huge Greek temple to Athena.
Or down the way, there's this philosophical forum where people believe in all kinds of things will make you right with God if you're just smart enough and you just think things well enough philosophically.
And down the other road, there are those who think by some sort of erotic expression you can reach another level of consciousness that there too you can be made right with God by going that path.
And these people just wonder, are we doing anything valid?
I mean, there's just a few of us here.
Are we going to be here next week? Is it worth anything what we're doing?
And the apostle says, "Before the foundations of the earth were laid, God planned to love you."
I know it seems kind of fragile, but God's intention was to love you.
If you didn't hear it as exclusion, but as a word to His own people, I think of the song some years ago, you'll date yourself if you know this, of Dan Fogelberg. Do you remember?
Longer than there have been fishes in the ocean, higher than any bird ever flew, longer than there have been stars up in the heaven.
I've been in love with you.
Now Dan Fogelberg couldn't really say that to his spouse with all honesty.
God can say it to you with complete integrity.
And not just to you, but to people who are in hard places, in struggling places. I think of some years ago before Katrina when a friend, some of you may know, Jeffrey Lancaster, went to the pastor in New Orleans, going down to the worst and the hardest areas. You know, long after the Fortune 500 companies had left New Orleans when poverty seemed to be everywhere, where it didn't seem even before Katrina there was any way for the city to come back, to go into neighborhoods of prostitution and drug addiction, to go where alcoholism was just rampant. Jeffrey said that when he began to work in the part of the city in which he served, he said, "Even at the first grade parties, they broke out the kegs."
He said it was just sin and immorality everywhere as they began to meet. He said there were very few whole families and they would meet every week just gathering together, just a few people to say, "God sent His Son for us."
What would it mean to that church in the heart of New Orleans under such difficulty, under such struggle, if God had just sung the song to them longer than there have been fishes in the ocean, higher than any bird ever flew, longer than there have been stars up in the heaven, "I've been in love with you."
Wouldn't that mean everything? When they come back again, wouldn't they believe that God had a plan greater than their sin, greater than their weakness? I think of us here folks in the PCA.
What do we recognize about ourselves?
We know we're churches that have done well, but some of us are struggling right now. Some of us are starting new.
Some of us are wondering if the best days are behind us.
Some of us are starting over again. Some of us feel erosion. Some of us feel hope. All of us wonder if there is purpose for the next day and the next week and the next generation.
What would it mean if, against all the struggles, against all the things that you know are going on within the four walls of your church, if you knew that God Himself would say, "Before the foundations of the earth were laid, I knew you and I loved you." And there may be some woods to go through, but heaven already is your home.
So you can be at peace.
You can love me and your neighbor, and you can believe that there's a purpose for your life because I have loved you always.
And I'll see it through with you to the end, bringing purpose into your life. How do I know that? Because it's actually where the hardest words are. Verse 5.
"He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will."
His purpose is not that you would have a strong enough will, that your resolve would fix things. After all, the race is not to the strong, right? To the fast, the victory not to the strong.
He said it's not to Him that willeth or runneth, but God who shows mercy.
And the message of all this is God speaking to His people. He said, "I'm not talking about your success.
I'm not talking about your achievement or your accomplishment. I want you to know if you fail, if you fall on your face, if you have failed me and you are faithless, I will abide faithful.
Though you may abandon me, I will not abandon you. Though you may have lost hope in yourself, I have not lost you.
You are mine, and you may be in struggle against a well-muscled foe.
But God shouts from heaven itself, you are mine, and I love you, and I have loved you forever, and I will love you forever, and don't you dare forget that. And if it's a little strong, it's because sometimes He has to break through our despair, and the words are not so much to be excluding anybody as to be an affirmation to God's people of what they can count on. They can count upon their God who is a Father in heaven who loves them."
It's what God is saying through His Apostle. We want the debate, and He's saying this isn't the time for it. I think of a friend of mine. Some of you know Bob Smart, the pastor over in Normal, Illinois.
And Bob said one time there was a man who'd come to his church. He said literally for months and months, and seemed to warm to the things of the gospel, but would make no commitment. And finally, Bob said one time, "Why don't you capitulate to Jesus? Why don't you acknowledge Him as your Savior?" And the man said, "I'm just not sure I'm predestined."
And Bob said, "You know, that is just like Satan, to make you doubt the things that are meant to affirm you."
If you love Him, if you believe that Jesus has died to put your sins away as far as the East is from the West, that covered in Jesus, in Him you are holy and blameless, not because of your work, but because there's death for you upon a cross. If you believe that you are made right by Him, He says, "I love you.
It's you I'm talking to. I know there are other people, but it's you I'm talking to.
I have loved you forever, and therefore whatever comes, you can trust me. You are mine."
Colin did not make it very far in the wrestling match at State.
So we got in the car and we flew, got to the college, went through the qualifications,
got the scholarship.
And on the way as we were driving home, Colin and me, somewhere down in Tennessee or Kentucky coming back, Colin looked across at me and he said, "Dad, it's amazing. It's almost like God had it all planned."
Gee, you think?
Of course He does, because while there may be woods and darkness and enemies and struggle,
Bless us with the truths of your Word.
To admit mystery where we must, do not press beyond where we can, but to see your Word for its purpose.
Father, I pray even this evening that there would be those here who would reaffirm in their own hearts what they may have doubted before coming.
The Father in heaven has not abandoned them, though they might have abandoned Him.
The Father in heaven has not turned His back, though it seems the tide of circumstances have turned against them.
Would you remind us again, Father, that you are not waiting for us to be good enough to love us, but before the foundations of the world were laid, you determined to send your Son to die for sinners such as we?
Help us, Father, to know it, that we would willingly confess our sin, raising our heads in the knowledge that He who knew it before we even confessed it, delighted still to call us His beloved.
So as we have repented, we would have the great confidence that you receive us, the confidence that brings a child back to a Father, and the confidence that comes from the Scriptures that say.
The Father says, "You are mine.
I have loved you forever, and I will."
Teach us this in Jesus' name. We pray.