SPEAKER_00: All an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints here in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Christ 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.
SPEAKER_00: In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
SPEAKER_00: In him we have an obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Let me ask you, if you were building a uh a team out, say we were doing a project uh at work or you were uh picking other students to collaborate with, what kind of team uh would you would you build?
SPEAKER_02: What kind of people uh would you pick?
SPEAKER_02: Well, presumably you'd you give some thought to to competency.
SPEAKER_02: You'd want to pick people who could actually get the job done.
SPEAKER_02: So you'd be thinking about their skill sets and say, well, actually, are they a good person to have do they make up a weakness or a deficiency that I have?
SPEAKER_02: You'd think about the character of the person.
SPEAKER_02: Is this person going to be uh going to be honest?
SPEAKER_02: Are they gonna have integrity?
SPEAKER_02: Are they gonna be hardworking?
SPEAKER_02: Or are they gonna be like most of the people on your student projects where they actually just don't do anything and you carry uh the whole thing?
SPEAKER_02: You might think about a person's convictions.
SPEAKER_02: You know, what's the kind of moral quality of this person?
SPEAKER_02: What kind of uh things do they uh have centering their lives?
SPEAKER_02: You might think about that.
SPEAKER_02: And then you'll think about chemistry.
SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, this person might have great character, this person might be really competent uh at what they do, but actually, we just don't, we just don't quite get on.
SPEAKER_02: There's a hostility between the two of us.
SPEAKER_02: They're a great person, but we can't work together.
SPEAKER_02: You would consider those sorts of things.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what if someone came along who didn't have much in the way of skills?
SPEAKER_02: They weren't the most proficient, have a strong understanding of the task at hand, or indeed a great affinity with the company or the team or the project.
SPEAKER_02: And historically, this person had had major beef with other people on the team, and they were already rubbing you up the wrong way.
SPEAKER_02: Would you build a team with those sorts of people?
SPEAKER_02: When Jesus talks about the kind of community that he is building, the kind of people that he is inviting onto his team, he says this in the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_02: Who does Jesus want on his team?
SPEAKER_02: Answer the people who know that they are a mess.
SPEAKER_02: The people who know that they are in need.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is building a new community, but not just a new community, a new kind of community.
SPEAKER_02: One where we don't bring our skills and our strengths, first and foremost, but where we bring our needs, our weaknesses.
SPEAKER_02: This is the church, the team that Jesus is building.
SPEAKER_02: Now, in a room like this, it's inevitable that I'm sure lots of you are new today, I'm sure you've had lots of different experiences when it comes to church.
SPEAKER_02: You've perhaps been at different denominations, different uh uh associations, groupings, where there's been slightly different expressions and beliefs.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, many of you will have had positive experiences about the church.
SPEAKER_02: It's why you're back here this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you, however, will have had negative experiences.
SPEAKER_02: You'll maybe have even been hurt by the church.
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps you're here this morning and you've never been part of one and you're just exploring.
SPEAKER_02: Well, welcome to you.
SPEAKER_02: Over the next uh six weeks or so, we're going to be looking at this uh letter from Paul, the book of Ephesians, and we're going to be looking particularly at what Paul has to teach us about the church, the team, the community, the new kind of community that Jesus is building.
SPEAKER_02: The beauty of it, the mystery of it, how it is that Jesus has brought it together and what it is for.
SPEAKER_02: That despite its imperfections, it is God's chosen means of reaching the world.
SPEAKER_02: Have you realized that?
SPEAKER_02: You look around to the person sitting next to you and you think, ah, they're part of God's chosen means for reaching others with the good news of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Does that encourage you?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it should.
SPEAKER_02: Well done.
SPEAKER_02: This morning, we're going to begin by seeing what the church is.
SPEAKER_02: And I have to tell you, if you are, if you're new, uh I hate a litterative sermon points, but I'm doing it this morning.
SPEAKER_02: So please listen to them because I hate myself uh in writing them.
SPEAKER_02: But it just worked well for the sermon.
SPEAKER_02: So we do actually have four points beginning with P.
SPEAKER_02: Uh that is not our usual practice.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, they can probably go on the on the slide behind me, because I think I send them over.
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm going to give them all now.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe they'll appear.
SPEAKER_02: But okay, here they are.
SPEAKER_02: What we'll see that the church is the church is planned by God, purchased by Jesus, a preview of the future and purposed for glory.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Four points beginning with P.
SPEAKER_02: You're welcome.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to City Church.
SPEAKER_02: If this is your first Sunday with us.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Do we have it?
SPEAKER_02: Is it up there yet?
SPEAKER_02: No?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, somebody will work it out.
SPEAKER_02: First one it's planned by God.
SPEAKER_02: What is the church?
SPEAKER_02: It's planned by God.
SPEAKER_02: You think of our graphic there of the blueprint.
SPEAKER_02: Well, long before any brick is laid in a building, the architect plans the design.
SPEAKER_02: And so it is with God and his people.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pick up what Paul says in verses three to five.
SPEAKER_02: He says, 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.
SPEAKER_02: In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.
SPEAKER_02: See what Paul's doing?
SPEAKER_02: Before any church is established back in the first century, before ever Abraham was called back in Mesopotamia, before Adam and Eve ever ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
SPEAKER_02: Long before that, Paul says, back in eternity, God was doing something.
SPEAKER_02: God was planning that in the perfect eternal community that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he planned to have a people of his own.
SPEAKER_02: People sometimes say that the church is a man-made construct, something designed to manipulate and control and exert power over people.
SPEAKER_02: Sadly, in the history of the church, sometimes it has been used that way.
SPEAKER_02: But that is not the church's origins.
SPEAKER_02: No, the church's origins begin in eternity.
SPEAKER_02: The church, therefore, is the in-time expression of the eternal planning of the eternal God.
SPEAKER_02: It was a plan to do what?
SPEAKER_02: A plan to bless.
SPEAKER_02: A plan to lavish blessing.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see what Paul says?
SPEAKER_02: He has blessed us in Christ with what?
SPEAKER_02: Every spiritual blessing.
SPEAKER_02: He has lavished blessings upon us.
SPEAKER_02: That's an important thing, actually, just to kind of reckon with, because sometimes people can have this confused idea that to be a follower of Jesus is a meager life, or a boring life, or a dull life, or a rationed life.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus' first miracle was to turn water into what?
SPEAKER_02: Into vats of good wine, about 1,200 bottles.
SPEAKER_02: Whereas lots of people seem to think that Jesus is the guy who turns wine into water.
SPEAKER_02: But here we see that the plan begun in eternity was to bless a people of his own, to bless them with what?
SPEAKER_02: With every spiritual blessing, to lavish blessing upon them, to call a people to himself that they would be holy, blameless, adopted forever into his family.
SPEAKER_02: Now, depending on your church tradition, sometimes people bristle at the idea of God's eternal choosing.
SPEAKER_02: They'll say things like, Well, didn't I decide to follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Yes, you did.
SPEAKER_02: We mustn't diminish that.
SPEAKER_02: And if you're not a Christian here this morning, I encourage you to make that decision.
SPEAKER_02: Decide to put your trust in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Turn to him, turn away from your sin and find life and this lavish blessing in him.
SPEAKER_02: Do that today.
SPEAKER_02: But know this long before our choosing, God was planning.
SPEAKER_02: Long before our choosing, God in love chose you.
SPEAKER_02: It's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_02: What this means is that you are not an afterthought, but you are part of his eternal desire.
SPEAKER_02: As a consequence, the church, therefore, is not an accident.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a last-minute prefab that God's just kind of stuck together.
SPEAKER_02: It's determined and designed by a loving God in eternity.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says that this eternal planning, this choosing, this predestinating is a blessing.
SPEAKER_02: It's a good thing.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you how it's good.
SPEAKER_02: Very briefly.
SPEAKER_02: Let me give you four reasons from this passage why God's choosing of you in eternity is a blessing.
SPEAKER_02: It's a good thing to be enjoyed, to be celebrated first.
SPEAKER_02: It means that the ground of your salvation, that is, your standing before God, is not based on your goodness.
SPEAKER_02: It's not based on your goodness, but on his grace.
SPEAKER_02: See more of that next week.
SPEAKER_02: It's based on his eternal kindness towards you.
SPEAKER_02: And that's such good news because I'm sure that everyone in this room has things that you are ashamed of.
SPEAKER_02: That you've done things that you're ashamed of this last week.
SPEAKER_02: And you think, well, how can I ever come before God?
SPEAKER_02: How can God ever love me because of the things that I have done, the things that have happened that bring guilt and shame to my mind.
SPEAKER_02: But the ground of our salvation is not our goodness, it's not our moral clarity.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says elsewhere in Roma in Romans 5 that while we were still sinners, Daniel prayed a great prayer.
SPEAKER_02: He said, he said that we so often miss the mark.
SPEAKER_02: He said, Well, we were consistently missing the mark.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, bud.
SPEAKER_02: God set his love upon us.
SPEAKER_02: Let me give you another reason.
SPEAKER_02: We all have doubts.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you here this morning are questioning your faith.
SPEAKER_02: We all have seasons of that, seasons of spiritual dryness.
SPEAKER_02: We all have times when we feel weak in our faith.
SPEAKER_02: What does our assurance rest on?
SPEAKER_02: Our assurance is our confidence that we are God's and He is ours and He will hold us fast.
SPEAKER_02: What is the ground of that assurance?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it cannot be, it can never be the strength or clarity of our faith, but the object of our faith.
SPEAKER_02: It is not about how how well or how hard we hold on to Christ, but rather it is Christ's eternal holding of us that grinds our assurance and gives us confidence through those spiritually dry and arid seasons.
SPEAKER_02: Though I fear my faith may fail, he will hold me fast.
SPEAKER_02: Though the tempter would prevail, he will hold me fast.
SPEAKER_02: Though my love is often cold, he will hold me fast.
SPEAKER_02: The third reason why God's choosing in eternity is a good thing, is a blessing, is because if it was not like that, then our evangelism, that is our sharing of the gospel, would be terrifying.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you why.
SPEAKER_02: If salvation didn't rest in God and in his eternal choosing, then you've got to ask, well, what does it rest in?
SPEAKER_02: One of the answers is that, well, it rests in my ability to persuade you, non-Christian, to give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: That means that your eternal destiny is on my shoulders.
SPEAKER_02: I need to have the answer that will convince you to put your trust in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone feel the pressure of that?
SPEAKER_02: That's bewilderingly difficult.
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever had a conversation as a Christian with somebody who is not a follower of Jesus and they have owned you?
SPEAKER_02: You have come away as the loser in that conversation.
SPEAKER_02: And you've come away completely despondent because you're like, oh, and you're you're replaying the conversation in your head, you think, oh, I should have said that.
SPEAKER_02: Why didn't I think of that in the moment if their salvation rests on your winsomeness, on your ability to persuade, then you walk away from those conversations just crushed.
SPEAKER_02: But if salvation belongs to the Lord, which it does, He can take your cotton mouth rubbish answers and just blow the spiritual doors off a person's heart.
SPEAKER_02: It's one of the joys of living in a world under the care of a sovereign God whose salvation is his.
SPEAKER_02: It means it could take take a prophet like Jonah.
SPEAKER_02: Remember the story of Jonah?
SPEAKER_02: Jonah walks in to Nineveh.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't want to be there.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't want God to rescue them.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, he wants God to rain down flaming rota from heaven to smite them all.
SPEAKER_02: It's one of the things that he's annoyed about in the fourth chapter.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, I knew you were a merciful God.
SPEAKER_02: And do you know what his sermon is in Nineveh?
SPEAKER_02: In chapter three, he walks in, he says, five words.
SPEAKER_02: Five words.
SPEAKER_02: 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown.
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
SPEAKER_02: And the whole city comes to repentance.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because he realizes in chapter two that salvation belongs to the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: It's as though he drops a cigarette or a match as he walks out because he doesn't want to be there.
SPEAKER_02: And just the fire of God's Spirit rips through the whole place.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because evangelism does not depend on us, but on our sovereign God.
SPEAKER_02: And so we take heart.
SPEAKER_02: And it fuels us to share the gospel of the more because it means I don't need to know all the answers.
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to have it all sorted out.
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to have it all figured out.
SPEAKER_02: I can share with my weak witness, like the little boy bringing his his two fish and uh and five and or his two loaves and five fish.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna offer this to Jesus and see what he does.
SPEAKER_02: And what he does is he brings dead people to life.
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, you did that with that?
SPEAKER_02: Imagine if I learned more.
SPEAKER_02: So encouraging.
SPEAKER_02: It's such a blessing.
SPEAKER_02: The fourth reason.
SPEAKER_02: Some people will say, well, if God chooses me, isn't that just an excuse to sin?
SPEAKER_02: Why can't I just live however I want?
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've prayed the sinner's prayer, I've decided to follow Jesus, and so I'm I'm in.
SPEAKER_02: I've paid my ticket, as it were, and so I'm just gonna live however I like.
SPEAKER_02: But that's not what Paul says in this passage.
SPEAKER_02: He says the whole point of God's choosing, verse four, is that we would be what?
SPEAKER_02: Holy and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: Let me remind you of verse four.
SPEAKER_02: Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, why?
SPEAKER_02: What purpose, Paul?
SPEAKER_02: What have you done that for?
SPEAKER_02: What has God done that for?
SPEAKER_02: That we should be holy and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 4 says that the purpose of God's choosing is holiness.
SPEAKER_02: And so God's choosing of us, his election of us, his predestinating of us, is not a license to drift into sin, but a call to grow in godliness.
SPEAKER_02: Far from making us careless, God's choosing of us is the motivating engine of our holiness.
SPEAKER_02: Because, and this is important, because it grinds our growth in God not in fear of judgment, but in love, in gratitude for what he has already done.
SPEAKER_02: We do not obey God in order that he might love us, but because he already does love us, and so we live to please him.
SPEAKER_02: Fear only ever produces compliance.
SPEAKER_02: It is love that produces devotion.
SPEAKER_02: All of these blessings are collective.
SPEAKER_02: Not just about you individually, they're about the people that you're sitting with this morning.
SPEAKER_02: They're about the church.
SPEAKER_02: He chose us, Paul says.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's letters are written to churches, not to individuals, with the exception of Philemon.
SPEAKER_02: He chose us, he chose to bless us as a church.
SPEAKER_02: The church, therefore, is not an accident in time, but part of the unfolding plan of God, conceived in eternity and expressed in his world.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, that's the only point that has subpoints.
SPEAKER_02: So we'll be able to move quicker through two, three, and four.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, the church is purchased by Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: There we go, we're over there.
SPEAKER_02: Planned in eternity, purchased by Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: How does God's eternal plan play out in history?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the whole story of human history points to and culminates in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in history.
SPEAKER_02: If you're not a Christian, you want to figure out what Christianity is about, you've got to start with the question of is Jesus who he said he is?
SPEAKER_02: If Jesus is not who he said he is, then conversation ends.
SPEAKER_02: But if he is, if he is, then it changes everything.
SPEAKER_02: You even go more specific than that.
SPEAKER_02: You could ask yourself, did Jesus rise physically from the dead in history?
SPEAKER_02: Yes or no?
SPEAKER_02: That's where you aim your fire par.
SPEAKER_02: Don't come at me with, what about the dinosaurs?
SPEAKER_02: I don't care.
SPEAKER_02: You can have dinosaurs or you can believe Satan put the dinosaurs there to confuse scientists.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever.
SPEAKER_02: It's Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Did Jesus rise bodily from the dead?
SPEAKER_02: Glad to see you're all still awake.
SPEAKER_02: Because the resurrection of Jesus is not a metaphor, it is a physical, historical reality.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says that the church is created by the purchasing of Jesus through his death.
SPEAKER_02: Let me pick it up in verse 5.
SPEAKER_02: In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons, according as, sorry, in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he blessed us in the beloved, that's Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.
SPEAKER_02: Why does all of human history culminate in the death of Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: In the cross at Good Friday.
SPEAKER_02: Well, because the plan of God was never going to work if it was about rescuing good people or deserving people.
SPEAKER_02: Because none of us are good.
SPEAKER_02: None of us deserve his kindness.
SPEAKER_02: The beauty of the plan of God is that it was a plan to bring enemies home, to bring those who are trapped in sin and shame and guilt, and to free them to newness of life, to take the punishment for hostile sinners, to take away their shame so that they could live in the fullness of joy that his presence is forever.
SPEAKER_02: The death of Jesus is how that plan is executed.
SPEAKER_02: It's how that salvation is achieved.
SPEAKER_02: Now, Paul says that that death of Jesus for us was a redemption.
SPEAKER_02: What does that word mean?
SPEAKER_02: Paul's picking up a word that's used in the ancient world in the ancient slave markets.
SPEAKER_02: To redeem something in the slave markets was to pay a price that would free a slave.
SPEAKER_02: We are all by nature slaves to our own flesh, our own desires.
SPEAKER_02: We all worship things other than God, whether it's power, money, sex, control, comfort.
SPEAKER_02: We're all ensnared by those things, and Jesus sets captives free by his death.
SPEAKER_02: This is the great unanswered question, the great mystery that Paul talks about.
SPEAKER_02: How is it that those who are hostile to God and hostile to one another, enemies, could be reconciled?
SPEAKER_02: This is the great answer that you are looking for.
SPEAKER_02: How can I live the way that I was meant to live?
SPEAKER_02: You were made to live in relationship with the God who made you.
SPEAKER_02: And this is how it's achieved.
SPEAKER_02: You're set free by the death of Jesus by placing your faith in him.
SPEAKER_02: It's as simple as that.
SPEAKER_02: And what does this say about the church?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it means that the church is not a voluntary club of religious people, still less is it a social club.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, it is a community of redeemed people.
SPEAKER_02: We are people that exist only because Jesus has paid the ultimate price for us to be together, to make us his.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't just start small, it explodes from Jerusalem all across the ancient Near East.
SPEAKER_02: How did that happen?
SPEAKER_02: One of the great evidences for the truth of the gospel, the truth that Jesus is alive, that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, is the explosion of the church all across the world.
SPEAKER_02: And we are caught up in that story.
SPEAKER_02: You're part of it today.
SPEAKER_02: It is this good news that creates the church and transforms people.
SPEAKER_02: And it is this message that the church is a guardian and a herald of.
SPEAKER_02: Those around us need to hear of Christ's great love for them, that they can be forgiven, cleansed of shame and restored, brought into the family of God, not a family of flawless people, but of forgiven sinners, adopted and made new.
SPEAKER_02: The church is a community purchased by Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Third, the church is a preview of the future.
SPEAKER_02: In about an hour's time, the lights in here will go down lower than they are now.
SPEAKER_02: And the next movie screening will begin.
SPEAKER_02: And before it does, what will they show?
SPEAKER_02: Well, they'll show the trailers, the things that are coming that you can anticipate.
SPEAKER_02: You get a little snapshot, a little snippet, a little glimpse of what's coming.
SPEAKER_02: Well, the church is like that.
SPEAKER_02: The church is the glimpse in time of where all of history is headed.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says in verse 10 that God's planning, God's purposing through the church was a plan in the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
SPEAKER_02: This means that history, that our world, your life, it's not aimless.
SPEAKER_02: Have you realized that?
SPEAKER_02: Your life has a directionality to it, it's moving in a particular direction.
SPEAKER_02: All of history is moving in a particular direction, all of our world is moving in a particular direction.
SPEAKER_02: And what is that direction?
SPEAKER_02: Unity under Christ.
SPEAKER_02: That's where all of history is going.
SPEAKER_02: And that's such good news today.
SPEAKER_02: Because what that means is that the fractured storylines of our world will not last forever.
SPEAKER_02: This week has been hard.
SPEAKER_02: This week has been one where there has been multiple examples of the terrible hostility that can exist between human beings.
SPEAKER_02: The murderous hatred that can grip somebody sitting on a bus or at a university campus.
SPEAKER_02: But this is not history's last word.
SPEAKER_02: This is not our final destination.
SPEAKER_02: When you sit in the theater before a performance, you hear the orchestra tuning up, then you competing notes creating a chaotic sound.
SPEAKER_02: And then the lights go down.
SPEAKER_02: And the conductor lifts his button, and suddenly all of the instruments come together in one harmonious sound.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what the church is?
SPEAKER_02: The church is the opening bars of the symphony of eternity.
SPEAKER_02: How do we know that that music has begun?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because Paul says it has.
SPEAKER_02: Paul, towards the end of this passage, in verse 11, and then in verse 14, says two things that seem to contradict one another.
SPEAKER_02: In verse 11, he says, In him we have obtained an inheritance.
SPEAKER_02: And then in verse 14, he says that the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance, until we acquire possession of it.
SPEAKER_02: So what is it, Paul?
SPEAKER_02: Do we have it?
SPEAKER_02: Or is it still to come?
SPEAKER_02: Answer?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: We have it.
SPEAKER_02: And we will experience it more fully.
SPEAKER_02: The great symphony of redemption and new creation has begun in this time, in your life, in City Church Dublin, and all of the other churches across this land that call upon the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And then we will hear it in all of its eternal fullness, unsullied by hatred and discord.
SPEAKER_02: Now we have been forgiven and adopted.
SPEAKER_02: The papers are signed.
SPEAKER_02: But then, then the Father will come and will bring his children home.
SPEAKER_02: Now you are being made holy and blameless by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: But then when he finishes that work, you will be holy as he is holy.
SPEAKER_02: The church is a foretaste of what the new creation will be.
SPEAKER_02: Unity across ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, classes, political dispositions.
SPEAKER_02: It is a community of forgiveness, forgiving others now, knowing that we have been forgiven and will one day be together again, never to sin against one another.
SPEAKER_02: It is a community that hopes in the face of trial, that hopes in the face of despair, that hopes in the face of darkness and murderous hate.
SPEAKER_02: That one day all tears will be wiped away.
SPEAKER_02: How do we know that this will pass?
SPEAKER_02: How do we know that this will happen?
SPEAKER_02: Because he has given us his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: The Holy Spirit is that guarantee, that stamp, that seal, that all that he has promised us will come true, that he is transforming us, that he is reassuring us, that he is encouraging and comforting us until that glorious day when we see him face to face.
SPEAKER_02: The church isn't perfect, but it is a preview.
SPEAKER_02: It's a preview of God's promised future.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're not part of it, don't sit on the sidelines.
SPEAKER_02: Come be part of it.
SPEAKER_02: It's glorious.
SPEAKER_02: It's not perfect, but it is a preview.
SPEAKER_02: Lastly, it is purposed for glory.
SPEAKER_02: Why did God set this plan in eternity?
SPEAKER_02: That God the Son would die to rescue hostile sinners in a broken and sinful world, that he would give them then his spirit to transform and release and unite them?
SPEAKER_02: Paul tells us three times in this passage that it was to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_02: Why does the world exist?
SPEAKER_02: To show the matchless beauty of God to the world around us.
SPEAKER_02: Why does the church exist to show us the matchless worth of the beauty of God who calls sinners, sons and daughters?
SPEAKER_02: The church is like a spotlight in time, illuminating more of what God is like.
SPEAKER_02: It does not draw attention to itself, but to Jesus, its Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_02: This is the ultimate why behind the church.
SPEAKER_02: The church doesn't exist primarily for our comfort or our transitions, or transitions, for our traditions.
SPEAKER_02: We exist to glorify God.
SPEAKER_02: This means that our worship is not entertainment, it's exaltation.
SPEAKER_02: Our unity isn't a social experiment, it's a display of God's reconciling power.
SPEAKER_02: Our good works are not virtue signaling, they are evidences of lives that have been transformed by the grace of God.
SPEAKER_02: And when the world sees the church as it is meant to be, they don't walk away thinking, what amazing people.
SPEAKER_02: No, they should walk away thinking, what an amazing God.
SPEAKER_02: What does this mean for us as we finish?
SPEAKER_02: Well, personally, it means this.
SPEAKER_02: It means that your life isn't about you.
SPEAKER_02: It's not about self-promotion, self-protection, self-fulfillment.
SPEAKER_02: It's about God and his glory.
SPEAKER_02: That's where happiness will be found.
SPEAKER_02: That's where meaning, satisfaction, and joy will be find.
SPEAKER_02: In your presence are treasures forevermore.
SPEAKER_02: Communally, as a church, it means that the church's programs, what we do in a Sunday morning, what we do in community group, our strategies, our growth plans, they're all secondary.
SPEAKER_02: The true measure of whether or not we are a church transformed by him is are we pointing people to the greatness of God?
SPEAKER_02: So, what have we seen?
SPEAKER_02: Our four P's.
SPEAKER_02: The church is planned in eternity.
SPEAKER_02: You're not an accident of history.
SPEAKER_02: You are part of God's blueprint from before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_02: The church is purchased by Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: You are not here because of your merit or simply by chance, but because Jesus paid the ultimate price, he shed his blood to make you his.
SPEAKER_02: The church is a preview of the future.
SPEAKER_02: We are a foretaste of where history is heading, where enemies are reconciled, where shame is removed, and where everything is united under Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And the church is purposed for glory.
SPEAKER_02: Our existence is not about us, but about magnifying and showing the eternal worth, beauty, majesty, grandeur of him who set his love upon us in eternity.
SPEAKER_02: If you have never been part of that story, be part of it today.
SPEAKER_02: Turn to Jesus and be part of that great unfolding drama that continues until the day when we see him face to face.