Brian Durfee: Everything in our lives flows for who we believe we are.
Brian Durfee: You know, a few weeks, a few weeks ago, Derek talked out of uh, he focused primarily on Ephesians 1.5, and he uh he asked the question, think about God, and then think about what God's face looks like when he looks at you.
Brian Durfee: And he said, if it's not a smile, then you still probably have some kind of orphan mindset.
Brian Durfee: And we, you know, sometimes we we don't realize that we're thinking like an orphan when it comes to God.
Brian Durfee: We've got this idea of God that's based on our earthly father and what our earthly father did well or what he didn't do well.
Brian Durfee: Um, and so I want to build on what Eric spoke about.
Brian Durfee: He was speaking primarily in Ephesians 1.5, and I want to go to 1.4.
Brian Durfee: So, and don't worry, this isn't long.
Brian Durfee: Um, think about good fathers here on earth.
Brian Durfee: Even if you you don't have children, I think most people here probably do, but even if you don't, we all had a biological father and possibly an adoptive father.
Brian Durfee: And so we can at least understand the concept of whether they were good fathers or not.
Brian Durfee: And there's no father who does it all right here on earth.
Brian Durfee: And even if our father was screwed up, we, you know, we now do our bet the best we can because we want our son to grow up to be a good man and a good father, or our daughter to grow up to be a good woman and a good mother.
Brian Durfee: You know, that's what we want.
Brian Durfee: But we have a lot to do just to live life.
Brian Durfee: I mean, you know, how do I have this time to focus on what I'm supposed to learn so I can be a good parent and all that?
Brian Durfee: I mean, think about it.
Brian Durfee: We take care of our ourselves, our families, and our kids, and then there's a then there's our jobs, and then there's the stuff that we like to do at church, and then there's the stuff that we feel like we should do at church, and then we're supposed to read our Bible and pray, and if we're lucky, we get a little bit of free time.
Brian Durfee: We live very busy lives.
unknown: Yes, true.
Brian Durfee: Within most of all the tasks and obligations and busyness, we don't really have a whole lot of time to think about what it means to be a son of God.
Brian Durfee: And yet, God, the Father, is our model for the fathers that we're to be.
Brian Durfee: Whether that means we're fathering our own children, or whether it means that we're mentoring other young men, or if it just means that we're understanding who our father is.
Brian Durfee: So we can we can agree that we are a son of God, that we've been adopted by God, but in the middle of this busy life, what big difference does a son mean when we've got all this other stuff to do?
Brian Durfee: I mean, if you think about it, Ephesians 1.3 says, God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.
Brian Durfee: So that's all nice and spiritual, and we can be that, and we can agree that being a child of God is a spiritual blessing.
Brian Durfee: That takes care of the future, so we don't go to hell and we go to heaven, but what in the world is it gonna do us for right now, in the here and now?
Brian Durfee: So I want you to take that thought and put a pen in it because we're gonna come back to that.
Brian Durfee: Now, what I want to talk about this morning is the source of our sonship.
Brian Durfee: And I know that we're, you know, I know we are sons in Christ because he died the death that we deserve, because our sin, because of our sin, and he rose from the dead, giving eternal life to all who will repent and abide in him.
Brian Durfee: I mean, we hear that all the time in church.
Brian Durfee: That's the gospel.
Brian Durfee: That's not the source of your sonship, that's the method by which we become sons.
Brian Durfee: The way it happens is that Jesus gave us life, and we can become sons of God if we repent and follow Jesus.
Brian Durfee: That's the method.
Brian Durfee: Ephesians 1 said 1:3, it says that we have received all spiritual blessings in Christ in the heavenlies.
Brian Durfee: Now, this isn't a literal translation, but here is what those things entail: all spiritual blessings.
Brian Durfee: That's all we can we can interpret that one way to mean all the rights and privileges.
Brian Durfee: In Christ, the method by which we become a son, and in the heavenlies, this is not about the afterlife.
Brian Durfee: The heavenly refers to a spiritual realm.
Brian Durfee: It exists right alongside the physical realm here, right now.
Brian Durfee: So when Paul says God has blessed us in the heavenlies in Christ, he means that all the blessings we receive are rooted in our union with Christ and drawn from his exalted position.
Brian Durfee: Now that's still not where I want to focus today, but it's the backdrop of what we need to understand.
Brian Durfee: Without Christ, we are spiritually dead.
Brian Durfee: We are dead in the heavenly realm.
Brian Durfee: And in Christ, we're made alive, not only just alive, but also sons of God.
Brian Durfee: And as a son, we're blessed with all spiritual blessings.
Brian Durfee: In other words, we're granted all the rights and privileges of being a son.
Brian Durfee: A son gets his identity, his sonship, from his father.
Brian Durfee: When a boy is born, he instantly becomes a son of his father.
Brian Durfee: The identity of the father is passed to the son.
Brian Durfee: He's given the last name of the father, indicating the family to which he belongs.
Brian Durfee: As a son grows up from infant to man, the son has all the rights and privileges that are given to him as a member of the family.
Brian Durfee: All those rights and privileges come because of the identity the father has given him.
Brian Durfee: Now, on this earth, some fathers don't want sons.
Brian Durfee: They're completely self-centered and just want to have sex.
Brian Durfee: They don't want to have a child, and they may go as far as rejecting their responsibility as a father and therefore reject their child.
Brian Durfee: Those are bad fathers.
Brian Durfee: But it's not that like that with God.
Brian Durfee: And that's what I that's where I'm getting to today.
Brian Durfee: You know, the New Testament was originally written mostly in Greek, and anytime you translate one language into another, it doesn't always bring over all the meaning.
Brian Durfee: And so we're going to look at the meaning of some words from the original Greek in Ephesians 1.4.
Brian Durfee: And I want to tell you, every one of you can do this.
Brian Durfee: This is not something that it there's a site called Bible Hub, and it will give you all this information, okay?
Brian Durfee: So um, but what I want to do is I just want to walk through Ephesians 1.4, just that one verse.
Brian Durfee: So that verse says, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
Brian Durfee: Now, even as he chose, he is referring to the Father.
Brian Durfee: Just keep that in mind.
Brian Durfee: The very first word, which in English we it's a phrase, just as or even as, that's one word Greek, in Greek, and when I it's uh kathos.
Brian Durfee: And when I learned that word, it just really kind of flipped this whole passage on because it's called a comparative conjunction.
Brian Durfee: And yes, I just learned that.
Brian Durfee: But a comparative conjuncture, what it does is it connects two ideas by showing how one reflects the other.
Brian Durfee: So it connects what's said before with what's said after.
Brian Durfee: So that little phrase, just as, here's what Paul's Paul's saying.
Brian Durfee: You know all those spiritual blessings I just mentioned?
Brian Durfee: Let's talk about them.
Brian Durfee: The first one is, and he goes on to talk.
Brian Durfee: So that's what just as is.
Brian Durfee: He's saying, here's the first of all those spiritual blessings that we've got.
Brian Durfee: And so then he the first blessing is Father chose.
Brian Durfee: He chose.
Brian Durfee: Okay?
Brian Durfee: Why is that a blessing?
Brian Durfee: Well, there's something that the English doesn't bring about, but the Greek does.
Brian Durfee: And like I said, this is all in Bible Hub.
Brian Durfee: Um, it's a completed, first off, the tense means it's a completed action.
Brian Durfee: He chose, it's a done deal, it's it's finished.
Brian Durfee: Second, it's a statement of fact.
Brian Durfee: But third is the big thing.
Brian Durfee: It's uh it's called middle voice.
Brian Durfee: God did it himself.
Brian Durfee: When it came to choosing, God didn't look over and say, hey Gabriel, take care of this for me.
Brian Durfee: God chose himself.
Brian Durfee: He didn't outsource it, he did it himself.
Brian Durfee: It was intentional, he was personally involved.
Brian Durfee: When you start thinking about you're chosen, you weren't just chosen by accident or randomly, or God says, okay, flip the flip the bingo cage and let's pull out a ball and see who gets it this time.
Brian Durfee: God chose you specifically.
Brian Durfee: And then the next word is us.
Brian Durfee: So he chose us.
Brian Durfee: And that's not complicated.
Brian Durfee: In Greek, it means us.
Brian Durfee: The next the the next the next phrase is in him.
Brian Durfee: Paul's talking about in Christ.
Brian Durfee: It refers to our position, our union with Christ.
Brian Durfee: God didn't choose people randomly or independently, he chose people who would be united with his son.
Brian Durfee: That phrase in him or in Christ, and it's all through Ephesians.
Brian Durfee: It identifies the realm or category of people God chose, those who are or would be united with Christ.
Brian Durfee: So now let's put all this together so far, and we're gonna build this as we go.
Brian Durfee: You know all those spiritual blessings?
Brian Durfee: Let's talk about them.
Brian Durfee: The first one is that God himself chose us as those who would be united with Christ.
Brian Durfee: That's pretty good.
Brian Durfee: God's intentional about you, Nick.
Brian Durfee: He's intentional about you, Bruce, and each one of us.
Brian Durfee: It's not, okay, they screwed up, let's get let's get them fixed, let's bring.
Brian Durfee: No, he chose you, Scott.
Brian Durfee: He chose you, Randy.
Brian Durfee: It's an individual thing.
Brian Durfee: He chose you to be united with Christ.
Brian Durfee: And then the next phrase says, before the foundation of the world.
Brian Durfee: Well, the word foundation comes from two words, which I found kind of funny.
Brian Durfee: It means a throwing down.
Brian Durfee: And you say, how do you get foundation from a throwing down?
Brian Durfee: Well, it also means a laying down.
Brian Durfee: And it's the act of laying down a foundation or describes something at the beginning of its process.
Brian Durfee: The word for world actually means this world that we live in.
Brian Durfee: So taking that and adding it on, you know those spiritual blessings?
Brian Durfee: You all are going to get so tired of hearing this before the end.
Brian Durfee: You know those spiritual blessings?
Brian Durfee: Let's talk about them.
Brian Durfee: The first one is that before he even started planning the creation process of the world, God himself chose us as those who would be united with Christ.
Brian Durfee: Are you all starting to see how this is building?
unknown: Yeah.
Brian Durfee: So I know, like I said, I know it's a little redundant, but it's it's really important that we get this.
Brian Durfee: So then this is the next phrase in Greek, which is different than it reads in English.
Brian Durfee: It's the same words, but it reads different.
Brian Durfee: To be us holy and blameless, which sounds a little weird in English.
Brian Durfee: To be is is an infinitive.
Brian Durfee: And so Greek infinitives, when they come after verbs like choosing or appointing, they indicate purpose.
Brian Durfee: And so the next phrase is a purpose statement.
Brian Durfee: So the purpose of God choosing us to be united in Christ.
Brian Durfee: Well, God chose us when He started before the planning of the planning of the creation of the world.
Brian Durfee: Why?
Brian Durfee: For us to be holy and blameless.
Brian Durfee: And whole, you know, those two words, holy and blameless, they sound a little redundant, kind of like the same thing.
Brian Durfee: Um and uh, but let's look at the meaning of those two.
Brian Durfee: Holy means to be set apart or consecrated, devoted to God.
Brian Durfee: Now, moral pure, we know normally when we think holy, we think morally pure, you know, sins done away with.
Brian Durfee: And that's an aspect of it.
Brian Durfee: But actually, what holiness is speaking about, it starts with belonging.
Brian Durfee: It is being set apart for relationship with God and for and for God's use in relation to it.
Brian Durfee: So holiness is about being set apart, being dedicated to God.
Brian Durfee: You know, rem if you remember in the temple in the Bible, you know, they had different implements in the temple, and they were considered to be holy.
Brian Durfee: Well, you know, we don't speak of those implements as being sinless, but they are set apart for a specific purpose.
Brian Durfee: They are set apart for God.
Brian Durfee: That's what holiness is.
Brian Durfee: So when we say I want to be holy, what we're really saying is I want to be set apart for God.
Brian Durfee: Now, the word blameless is about moral purity.
Brian Durfee: It comes from two words, blemished and not.
Brian Durfee: Not blemished.
Brian Durfee: That's what blameless means.
Brian Durfee: Without fault, spotless.
Brian Durfee: In the Old Testament, that was the word for the sacrificial sacrificial animals that were a suitable offering for God.
Brian Durfee: In the New Testament, it takes on the meaning of moral purity and integrity, being untainted by sin or accusation.
Brian Durfee: So blameless is not about being set apart, it's about being pure and undefiled within that relationship to which we are set apart.
Brian Durfee: So now let's look at everything put together again.
Brian Durfee: You know all those spiritual blessings?
Brian Durfee: Let's talk about them.
Brian Durfee: The first one is that before God even started planning, the started the planning and creation process of the world, he himself chose us as those who would be united with Christ for this purpose, for us to be completely set apart and so completely pure that we can't even be accused of doing anything wrong.
Brian Durfee: And then here comes the kicker.
Brian Durfee: This is the big thing.
Brian Durfee: This next little phrase is a big thing.
Brian Durfee: And for me, it makes the verse.
Brian Durfee: It's the phrase before him.
Brian Durfee: The primary, and this whole verse, think about this verse, the primary thought of this verse begins and ends with God.
Brian Durfee: It starts with God chose and it ends before him.
Brian Durfee: There's another couple of words that we'll talk about in a second, but it essentially ends with the words before him.
Brian Durfee: Everything begins and ends with God, and we're the beneficiaries in the middle.
Brian Durfee: The Greek word for before, you know, it said before before the foundation of the world, and now we have before him.
Brian Durfee: Before is two totally Greek words, two different Greek words there.
Brian Durfee: The Greek word before in this phrase, before him, is is I'm going to butcher this and opion.
Brian Durfee: So um, and it's a combination of three different ideas.
Brian Durfee: The first word is kata, which means down or according to or or in relation to.
Brian Durfee: The second word is in, which literally means in.
Brian Durfee: And the third word is op, which means face or eye.
Brian Durfee: When you put them all through when you put all three of these thoughts together in this one Greek word, it means in the face or in front of the eyes.
Brian Durfee: So we were chosen so that we could literally be in the in front of the face of God.
Brian Durfee: Only a good father wants his son in his face.
Brian Durfee: That's what he wants.
Brian Durfee: So picture a father who lifts his baby boy right up in front of his face so that he can he can kiss and snuggle his little his little boy and toss him up into the air.
Brian Durfee: Think of a father who, when his young boy has fallen down and is crying, his eight-year-old, and he gets right down in front of the eight-year-old and says, Hey, look at me, look at me.
Brian Durfee: You're okay.
Brian Durfee: And in that moment, the boy realizes that a skin knee is not the end of the world.
Brian Durfee: Think about the father who grabs the shoulders of his son, who is now a young man, and he squares him up and he looks him right in the right in the eyes, and they're looking at one another, and he says, I'm proud of you, son.
Brian Durfee: I love you, son.
Brian Durfee: That's our father.
Brian Durfee: That's being in the face of God.
Brian Durfee: He wants us in his presence.
Brian Durfee: He wants to hang out with us because he loves us and he likes us.
Brian Durfee: So often we think of ourselves as not likable, and that's not true.
Brian Durfee: God likes us.
Brian Durfee: And we're not just invited into his presence.
Brian Durfee: We were chosen for it.
Brian Durfee: We were chosen to live our lives right now in front of God, completely in his presence.
Brian Durfee: And that's all the time.
Brian Durfee: That's not just in our devotions at the beginning of the day.
Brian Durfee: That's as we go to the bathroom, that's as we take a shower, that's as as we eat our breakfast, that's as we go to work.
Brian Durfee: If we're retired, it's as we go do our other stuff.
Brian Durfee: Um, at every moment of every day, God says, Hey, I want you to live in my presence.
Brian Durfee: So let's look at what we have now.
Brian Durfee: You know all those things, all those spiritual blessings?
Brian Durfee: Well, let's talk about them.
Brian Durfee: The first one is that before he even started planning and creating the processes of the world, God himself chose us as those who would be united with Christ for this purpose, for us to be completely set apart and so completely pure that we can't even be accused of any wrongdoing, so that we can be continually be in his face, always in his presence.
Brian Durfee: And then comes this these last two little words at the end of the verse, in love.
Brian Durfee: Now, theologians sometimes wrestle with this phrase, and whether it goes with verse 4 or verse 5, because we have we have it broken down into verses, but in actuality, verses one, uh what is it, 1 through 14 are all one long run-on sentence that Paul did.
Brian Durfee: And so the theologians wrestle with, okay, does in love go with the next verse or does it go with this verse?
Brian Durfee: Well, you know what?
Brian Durfee: It doesn't matter, because it brings the same meaning regardless of which verse you put it in.
Brian Durfee: Why did God choose us to be in his presence?
Brian Durfee: That's verse 4.
Brian Durfee: Why did God predestine us to be to be adopted as sons?
Brian Durfee: That's verse five.
Brian Durfee: Because he has loved us before the foundation of the world.
Brian Durfee: This message is for every single one of us.
Brian Durfee: This is God calling to us and saying, I choose you for more than you can ask, think, or imagine, because I choose you to be with me.
Brian Durfee: You're chosen by the Most High God.
Brian Durfee: You're chosen to be united with Christ.
Brian Durfee: You're chosen to be devoted to God as set apart for him.
Brian Durfee: You're chosen to be so morally pure that no one can find anything to accuse you of, and you are chosen to be in to live in God's presence.
Brian Durfee: And all this happens because we're in Christ.
Brian Durfee: We can't do it.
Brian Durfee: He already did.
Brian Durfee: It's not dependent on anything that we can or can't do now.
Brian Durfee: God not only chose us, but he did all the work to make it happen.
Brian Durfee: So the very next verse, verse 5, sums up this whole choosing thing.
Brian Durfee: Because you were chosen, you are predestined to be adopted as sons with all the rights and privileges that come with being part of the household of God.
Brian Durfee: That's the Durfee translation.
Brian Durfee: And it's all according to the purpose of his will.
Brian Durfee: He wants it that way.
Brian Durfee: The source of sonship is God Almighty, the maker of universe.
Brian Durfee: Are you getting this?
Brian Durfee: The source of sonship, your sonship, is that the Most High God, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and Omega, and the beginning of the end, you're completely and utterly a son in the kingdom of God because God wants you and chooses you.
Brian Durfee: He wants you.
Brian Durfee: So what do we do with all this?
Brian Durfee: How does being a son help us in the here and now?
Brian Durfee: Being son changes everything about our perspective in life and how we live it.
Brian Durfee: We live like sons who belong.
Brian Durfee: God didn't choose us so that we could one day make it make it to heaven.
Brian Durfee: He chose us so that he so that here and now we would live as his sons in his presence.
Brian Durfee: If God chose you before the foundation of the world to live in his presence, then stop living like you're on the outside looking in.
Brian Durfee: When you wake up tomorrow before the noise of the day, remind yourself the first thing true about you today is not your to-do list, it's not your job title, and it's not your mistakes.
Brian Durfee: It's that you're his son chosen to stand right in his face.
Brian Durfee: As you go through your day, live from that place.
Brian Durfee: Maybe your father didn't show you what a good father's like, but you can talk to God as the father that you've always needed.
Brian Durfee: He's patient, he's kind, he's never too busy, he's never disappointed.
Brian Durfee: You don't have to earn his approval, you don't, you know, you don't have to fear his anger.
Brian Durfee: You can come to him honestly and trust that he loves you just because you're his son.
Brian Durfee: That means when you've messed up, there's a comedian uh by the name of Paul Poundstone that I saw her routine years ago, and she said, I had problems with my cat climbing up climbing up the bookshelf.
Brian Durfee: And so I went and I got a water bottle and I filled it with water, and the next time the cat ran up the shelf, I squirted it with the water bottle, and the cat ran to me for protection.
Brian Durfee: Do you realize the irony of that?
Brian Durfee: You know what?
Brian Durfee: When we sin, it's under the blood, and we run to God for protection.
Brian Durfee: We run to God.
Brian Durfee: When you got, if you if you've got a sin that you're dealing with, run to God.
Brian Durfee: He's the only one who can remedy it.
Brian Durfee: You can try to hide it, you can feel shame, you can feel guilt, or you can run to God.
Brian Durfee: That's the kind of father he is.
Brian Durfee: And he is going to say, okay, you're forgiven.
Brian Durfee: Go and sin no more.
Brian Durfee: But hey, let me go with you to help you.
Brian Durfee: That's our that's our father.
Brian Durfee: You know, every every day you get to walk through your day carrying your father's name.
Brian Durfee: When people meet us, they should get a glimpse of the Father, his patience, his courage, his mercy, or whatever the situation calls for.
Brian Durfee: Everywhere we go, we represent the Father who lifted up his arms and said, This one's mine.
Brian Durfee: And when temptation or shame whispers and says, You don't belong, because you screwed up, you look up and say, My Father chose me.
Brian Durfee: I'm set apart.
Brian Durfee: I am holy.
Brian Durfee: I am blameless.
Brian Durfee: And here's the here's another thing.
Brian Durfee: We don't do this alone.
Brian Durfee: God's given us each other.
Brian Durfee: Brothers, fellow sons.
Brian Durfee: We can walk this thing out together.
Brian Durfee: In Matthew 4:17, Jesus began ministry, but he began his ministry by preaching repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Brian Durfee: Being a son means living in that kingdom.
Brian Durfee: And we are in that kingdom because our father chose us.
Brian Durfee: We can live in that kingdom right here and right now.
Brian Durfee: So let's start living like sons together.
Brian Durfee: Chosen, loved, and standing, standing face to face with our Father.