SPEAKER_00: The Letter to the Ephesians by Pastor Lawrence Leragan, a sermon series podcast brought to you by Sevilla Chapel in St.
SPEAKER_00: Catharines.
SPEAKER_01: I want to review the first part of chapter one here.
SPEAKER_01: As we get into it, I want to just refresh your mind with a little bit of the context and some of the import of these initial words.
SPEAKER_01: We begin with Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.
SPEAKER_01: We discussed last time this word apostle, simply a part of the vocabulary meaning one who is sent, and that it could be applied to any person who is sent to do anything.
SPEAKER_01: It was even applied, remember, to ships that were sent across the sea to do trade.
SPEAKER_01: They were apostolic ships.
SPEAKER_01: So it's a common word.
SPEAKER_01: It's anybody or anything that's sent.
SPEAKER_01: And there is a sense, a very real sense, in which every single Christian can be called an apostle in that general way.
SPEAKER_01: We are all sent by Christ through the Great Commission into the world to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul says he is an apostle of Christ Jesus, and we talked about last time that there are 13 of those, and no more.
SPEAKER_01: Their number will never be added to.
SPEAKER_01: Because in order to be an apostle of Jesus Christ specifically, one had to be an eyewitness of the resurrected Christ.
SPEAKER_01: One had to receive personally the call from Christ to this office.
SPEAKER_01: And the apostles of Jesus Christ were given the miraculous gifts.
SPEAKER_01: They gave sight to the blind, they cast out the demons, just like Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: They extended his ministry in the beginning stages of the church.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in Ephesians chapter 2, we're told that we ourselves, the church, are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
SPEAKER_01: So these 13 men were called in a unique way to lay the foundation of the church.
SPEAKER_01: We studied the apostles' doctrine, the things handed down to us by them.
SPEAKER_01: They spoke and wrote with the very authority of God Himself.
SPEAKER_01: So this was unique to them.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody nowadays claiming to be an apostle is wrong.
SPEAKER_01: That is a false teaching.
SPEAKER_01: That's to be found primarily among the some of the more radical sects of the charismatic movement.
SPEAKER_01: There's even what's called the New Apostolic Reformation.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you've seen some of their advertising.
SPEAKER_01: You've certainly heard their music if you listen to Christian radio.
SPEAKER_01: But it's a false teaching.
SPEAKER_01: So here is Paul asserting to the Ephesians those with whom he had spent two and a half years, a little over two and a half years, teaching them, being their pastor, building the church.
SPEAKER_01: People that Paul knew personally and intimately, and he loved them and they loved him.
SPEAKER_01: We can see this, for instance, this great bond they had in Acts 20, when Paul says goodbye to the Ephesian elders.
SPEAKER_01: They clung to him and they wept over him, knowing they wouldn't see him again.
SPEAKER_01: So this is the apostle writing to these Ephesians, those who know him personally, yet still, though they have this personal knowledge, this bond with him, still he says to them, an apostle of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And this is simply to establish his authority as a spokesman of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We in Paul's writings, we hear him, we we read him saying things like, This I tell you, not the Lord, but I tell you.
SPEAKER_01: And that isn't just Paul making up something, Paul coming, you know what might be a good idea.
SPEAKER_01: That's not that.
SPEAKER_01: Anything Paul wrote, he wrote with the very authority of God.
SPEAKER_01: So that's how he that's how he begins his letters.
SPEAKER_01: That's how he begins this letter, establishing his authority to teach, to correct, to rebuke, to encourage all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We talked last time about that word saints.
SPEAKER_01: It's not something that belongs exclusively to the spiritually elite among the Roman Catholic cathedrals, those who have died and who have been canonized.
SPEAKER_01: No, this term refers to every single person who is in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It just means holy one.
SPEAKER_01: It means one who is set apart as holy for God.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody who is united to Christ by faith is a saint.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, the saints who are at Ephesus, meaning specifically, those are the ones that I'm writing to.
SPEAKER_01: Not those are the only saints.
SPEAKER_01: The saints I'm writing to are at Ephesus, and who are faithful in Christ Jesus, that's just another way of saying the saints.
SPEAKER_01: All those who are faithful in Christ Jesus are the saints.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody who is a saint is faithful in Christ Jesus, you see.
SPEAKER_01: So this is, it brings to our mind in Proverbs how you have the same thing stated in two different ways, just to kind of fill it out and emphasize it.
SPEAKER_01: The saints who are in Christ who are faithful in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Or the saints who are at Ephesus, sorry, who are faithful in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And that brings us to something that I have to draw your attention to in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: The terminology of in Christ, in him, in the beloved, it occurs 11 times in some form in the first 14 verses, between verse 2 and 14.
SPEAKER_01: 11 times in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Something we've got to keep our eye on.
SPEAKER_01: This first passage here, 3 to 14, is actually in the Greek, it's one sentence.
SPEAKER_01: It's over 200 words in the Greek.
SPEAKER_01: One sentence.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just like Paul got completely caught up, carried away in the praise of God, and it's just this kind of an outburst of praise and blessing to God, as he just pours forth all that's in his heart, all the truth that God has testified to him, and that is true for all of us.
SPEAKER_01: So that's this first section is up to verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: It's one sentence.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to keep an eye on all of the positional language that he uses for us and about us, in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And there's also a Trinitarian structure in this first 14 verses.
SPEAKER_01: We begin with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And then after verse 6, we move into Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the passage, we talk about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We are sealed in Him.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a very intentional Trinitarian structure to this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Our passage here that our sister read for us is the beginning, the focus on God the Father, His part in salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to see that as we carry on.
SPEAKER_01: But I want us to see Paul's prayer for the, Paul's greeting in prayer for the Ephesians here in verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: Grace to you and peace.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't just a pleasant way of saying hi.
SPEAKER_01: This is Paul's desire for them.
SPEAKER_01: And it, if he didn't finish it off with from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, it would be an empty, hollow, almost meaningless thing, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, grace and peace to you.
SPEAKER_01: It would be like saying to the to the hungry, homeless, go be warmed and filled.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not that because he says, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: There's no grace or peace to be had apart from God.
SPEAKER_01: That is where it is to be found.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, if you'll look with me in Romans 5, verse 1 and 2, this fantastic passage.
SPEAKER_01: Listen carefully.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we think of grace most often as an undeserved gift, and it is that.
SPEAKER_01: It's far more than that.
SPEAKER_01: We see in Romans 5.1 that we just read, or 5.2 rather, grace is actually the ground upon which we stand.
SPEAKER_01: Grace is actually the soil in which the Lord has planted his church, his people.
SPEAKER_01: We don't just say, Lord, thank you for the grace of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: We do say that, but we can't leave it there.
SPEAKER_01: Grace permeates everything the Lord does toward us.
SPEAKER_01: My brother at Rosedale, I remember hearing him, Lucas Nozzle, he preached.
SPEAKER_01: One time he said, Grace is what we are receiving every instant that we are not receiving judgment.
SPEAKER_01: And that's true.
SPEAKER_01: If we're not receiving judgment, we're receiving grace.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul's prayer, Paul's desire, his longing for these Ephesians is grace.
SPEAKER_01: Grace to you.
SPEAKER_01: We need grace to do what we're doing.
SPEAKER_01: I need grace to proclaim the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: You need grace to hear it in a way that honors Him, in a way that is worthy of Him.
SPEAKER_01: I need grace for everything that I do in life, every moment, and so do you.
SPEAKER_01: You know, grace is the power of the Holy Spirit working in us to accomplish God's good purpose, God's intention for us.
SPEAKER_01: In Philippians 2, we're told, it is He, it is God who works in us, both to will and to accomplish His good pleasure.
SPEAKER_01: That is, both to give us the willingness to do His purpose and to bring about the accomplishment of it.
SPEAKER_01: It is Him that works in us, and it is Him working in us, the power of His grace by His Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: When we pray, friends, for ourselves even, we have to pray, Lord, give me grace.
SPEAKER_01: Give me grace to honor you today.
SPEAKER_01: Give me grace to work hard for you today.
SPEAKER_01: Give me grace to honor my wife, my husband.
SPEAKER_01: Give me grace to be patient with my children and to love them.
SPEAKER_01: Give me grace to respond like Christ to everything that you bring in my path today.
SPEAKER_01: I prayed before we began here, confessing our tremendous dependence upon God.
SPEAKER_01: We are dependent upon his grace for everything.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul says, Grace to you.
SPEAKER_01: And peace.
SPEAKER_01: Peace.
SPEAKER_01: This is what people long for.
SPEAKER_01: People in this world who don't know Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You hear them say it, oh, if I could just have a moment's peace.
SPEAKER_01: But there's the chaos of an ungodly life, there's the consequences of sin that dominate them.
SPEAKER_01: There's the fears of what's going on in the world.
SPEAKER_01: They have no peace.
SPEAKER_01: Because peace is only to be found in the Prince of Peace.
SPEAKER_01: In Ephesians 2, Paul says of Christ, he himself is our peace.
SPEAKER_01: Peace is not just something that we get, that we enjoy as a consequence of our relationship with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Peace is Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He himself is our peace.
SPEAKER_01: When you feel distant from Christ, maybe maybe you've sinned and you haven't brought it to the Lord and it's gnawing at you.
SPEAKER_01: Do you have peace?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: No, you can't.
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: When you have been neglectful of the things of God and you haven't been praying and you haven't been worshiping Him and you haven't had the time to read His Word, do you find that you have peace that passes all understanding?
SPEAKER_01: No, I promise you you don't.
SPEAKER_01: He Himself is our peace.
SPEAKER_01: And it is as we dwell with Him, and as we understand that we are in Him, and it is that we pour out our whole being before Him in thanksgiving and in love, that the peace of God that passes all understanding keeps our hearts and minds through Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is Paul's desire for the Ephesians.
SPEAKER_01: That's how he opens it.
SPEAKER_01: We might read past these words, and we often do, as an intro, as an introduction.
SPEAKER_01: We might just say, grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ and think, well, we'll move on.
SPEAKER_01: That's just how Paul says hi.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Every single word has great importance.
SPEAKER_01: And all that I've just said in the last 10 minutes is wrapped up in what Paul is desiring and praying for these people.
SPEAKER_01: And it's all to be found in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It is from God in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: When I read Romans 5, 1, 5, rather, 1 and 2, we are justified by faith in Christ and have peace with God through Christ and access into this grace in which we stand.
SPEAKER_01: And it's from God, our Father.
SPEAKER_01: Interesting when you read carefully.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, from God our Father.
SPEAKER_01: And then in the next verse, he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We have the same Father.
SPEAKER_01: Later on in chapter 2, Paul's talking to these largely Gentile church in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying, Remember that before you were without Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: You were strangers from the covenants of promise.
SPEAKER_01: You had no hope, and you were without God in the world.
SPEAKER_01: But now in Christ, you are brought near.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes on in verse 19 of chapter 2 to say, so you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God.
SPEAKER_01: This whole letter, Paul, is establishing, just in very powerful terms, that we are actually his family.
SPEAKER_01: He talks about in, I believe in chapter 3, Paul says, For this cause I bow my knees to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom or from whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named.
SPEAKER_01: We are Christians.
SPEAKER_01: We bear the name of our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We are of the household of God.
SPEAKER_01: We are of his family.
SPEAKER_01: We are fellow heirs with Christ because what does it mean that his father is our father?
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: It means he's our brother.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means.
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember in in the gospel of Mark, Jesus is teaching and they're all sitting around him?
SPEAKER_01: And somebody interrupts him and says, Lord, your your mother and brothers are outside, they want to talk to you.
SPEAKER_01: And he looked at them and he said, Who are my mother and or who is my mother and who are my brothers?
SPEAKER_01: And he said to them, He said, Behold, my mother and my brothers.
SPEAKER_01: For whoever hears the word of God and keeps it or does it, the same is my mother and sister and brother.
SPEAKER_01: That is how you define a right relation to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Not through the genetic and and blood bond that he had with his mother and brothers and sisters in his house under Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: That's not how he defines it.
SPEAKER_01: He says, no, those who hear the word of God and do it and keep it, those are the ones who are truly and rightly related to me.
SPEAKER_01: And here, look at the emphasis that Paul is putting on this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, God is our Father.
SPEAKER_01: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
SPEAKER_01: And then right after that, he says, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be, verse 3, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And here we begin this little section that I mentioned, this introductory section that emphasizes God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: God the Father is the one who has blessed us.
SPEAKER_01: And that blessing is to be found where?
SPEAKER_01: In Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It is in the heavenly places, in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: There is no blessing to be found anywhere else.
SPEAKER_01: And how is that?
SPEAKER_01: How are we to understand all these blessings, this every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ?
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: Why doesn't the Lord say you've been blessed with every earthly blessing in Christ because we're on earth?
SPEAKER_01: So why isn't it earthly blessings?
SPEAKER_01: And it's very simple.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've ever wondered that, but it's very simple.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ is the blessing.
SPEAKER_01: He is the whole sum and substance of the blessing.
SPEAKER_01: And where is he?
SPEAKER_01: He is seated at the right hand of God Almighty, we say in our creed.
SPEAKER_01: All our blessings are in him.
SPEAKER_01: All our blessings are wrapped up with him in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible tells us he's going to come back from there.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, heaven, that's where our citizenship is, and that's where we're looking for his return to come.
SPEAKER_01: That's where our blessings are.
SPEAKER_01: And now is all this blessing, this every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, is all of that something that's up there waiting for us to get there so that we can enjoy it?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's present.
SPEAKER_01: He has blessed us with every blessing.
SPEAKER_01: That's past tense.
SPEAKER_01: It's something that's accomplished.
SPEAKER_01: It is actually the reality that we are now living in.
SPEAKER_01: We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing because we've been blessed with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So primarily, the blessing is salvation in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But along with him, it's not just that he doesn't just pluck us out of the fire and set us over there away from the fire and leave us to ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see that it goes infinitely deeper than that.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one in whom we reside.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 2 says, we are seated with Christ in heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: Our lives don't make any sense apart from Christ because we're in him.
SPEAKER_01: Our union with him is so complete that we are identified with him.
SPEAKER_01: And that there's, like Paul says in Romans, he says, there's nothing in heaven, nothing on earth, nothing under the earth that can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: We are forever secure in him.
SPEAKER_01: Is that a blessing?
SPEAKER_01: What greater blessing is there?
SPEAKER_01: He himself is the blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Now the benefits, the benefits that pour out of our union with Christ, and cannot be separated from his person are innumerable.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're going to discover as we go through this letter.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is just going to one after another unfold the treasures of the glories of Christ that are ours because we are in him.
SPEAKER_01: But here he's saying it is it is God the Father who is to be blessed, because he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now, verse 4, we're breaking new ground.
SPEAKER_01: Just as he chose us in him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as we read this passage, we have to be very careful.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of he's and hymns.
SPEAKER_01: So we have to be very careful that we understand the subject of this passage.
SPEAKER_01: The subject is God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one to whom Paul is referring when he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He is the who, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Just as He, that is God the Father, chose us in Him.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the Father, that's Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He's blessed us in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He chose us in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: When?
SPEAKER_01: Before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_01: How does that work?
SPEAKER_01: Before we were even born?
SPEAKER_01: He chose us in Christ?
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty hard to mistake.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's using very plain language here, isn't he?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to his disciples, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
SPEAKER_01: And Romans 9, this great passage that just incinerates every argument against this great doctrine of God's sovereign election.
SPEAKER_01: Paul mentions Jacob and Esau.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, before either one, before they were born, before either one had done any good or any bad, God says, Jacob, have I loved, Esau have I hated?
SPEAKER_01: So that his purpose according to election might stand.
SPEAKER_01: It is just a plain fact that all things belong to God by virtue of the fact that he's the creator of all things.
SPEAKER_01: And you remember the parable Jesus told of the landowner who went into town to hire the laborers to come and work in his vineyard.
SPEAKER_01: And he hired some first thing in the morning, and throughout the day he kept hiring little bunches of guys until at the end of the day there was an hour of work left, and he went and hired the last guys who were hanging around in town with nothing to do.
SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, he was paying them.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, says to his to his servant, bring the last first.
SPEAKER_01: And the first last.
SPEAKER_01: So the first ones who were hired that worked there all day, they're watching everybody in front of them get paid.
SPEAKER_01: They'd agreed to pay, agreed to work for so much.
SPEAKER_01: It was a denarius, I think.
SPEAKER_01: That was a day's wage.
SPEAKER_01: And the ones who'd been there an hour, they're first in line, and and the landowner gives them a denarius.
SPEAKER_01: So the guys that were first, they're thinking, okay, he's probably going to double my wages.
SPEAKER_01: And when they got there, he gave them a denarius.
SPEAKER_01: And they were pretty upset, weren't they?
SPEAKER_01: They thought, well, if those guys deserve a denarius, we who have borne the heat and burden of the day, surely we'll get double pay.
SPEAKER_01: And the landowner said to them, Did we not agree for this amount?
SPEAKER_01: Is your eye jealous because I'm generous with these?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Don't I have the right to do whatever I wish with what is my own?
SPEAKER_01: That's the principle.
SPEAKER_01: It's Psalm 115.3.
SPEAKER_01: Our God is in the heavens, he does whatever pleases him.
SPEAKER_01: It's Ephesians 1.11.
SPEAKER_01: He does all things according to the counsel of his will.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord has from before the foundation of the world set his love upon a people.
SPEAKER_01: You remember when Jesus in John 3 is speaking to Nicodemus?
SPEAKER_01: It's the most well-known verse in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
SPEAKER_01: He's speaking to Nicodemus.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he said to Nicodemus, Are you the teacher of Israel?
SPEAKER_01: The He was a very prominent man in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Are you the teacher of Israel?
SPEAKER_01: And you don't understand this?
SPEAKER_01: He said, God so loved the world.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't mean every person on the globe.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't mean the physical globe.
SPEAKER_01: He certainly didn't mean the evil spiritual system energized by Satan.
SPEAKER_01: These are all ways, these are all things that the word world is applied to.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't mean that.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking to the teacher of the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: And he's telling him God so loved the world, not just the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: You can take, just for purposes of understanding his intent, you can remove the world with not just the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: God so loved people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, Nicodemus.
SPEAKER_01: Not just the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: What a shock to Nicodemus.
SPEAKER_01: But from before the foundation of the world, God has set his love upon a people.
SPEAKER_01: And this people is not defined by any ethnicity, by any geographical boundary.
SPEAKER_01: It is not even defined by the time in which they live, because it spans all of time.
SPEAKER_01: God has set his love upon a people, and he sent his son to redeem them.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he means when he says, just as he chose us in him, in Christ, from before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And then he sent him to redeem her.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says in John 10, you know that marvelous passage where he's describing himself as the great shepherd of the sheep.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, My sheep know my voice.
SPEAKER_01: And when they hear it, they follow me.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, I have other sheep also who are not of this fold.
SPEAKER_01: That is, not of the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: I have other sheep also who are not of this fold.
SPEAKER_01: And he's referring to us.
SPEAKER_01: He's referring to every to the world that he spoke to Nicodemus about.
SPEAKER_01: He's referring to everybody who's not a Jew.
SPEAKER_01: And this is who Paul's writing to.
SPEAKER_01: Primarily, a primarily non-Jewish church.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, I have, I have sheep that are not of this fold.
SPEAKER_01: When Paul was in Corinth, he had just everywhere he went, he suffered.
SPEAKER_01: He was beaten, he was imprisoned.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul's in Corinth, and the Lord appeared to him to encourage him and say, Go on preaching.
SPEAKER_01: For I have many people in this city.
SPEAKER_01: But the Lord knew who they were.
SPEAKER_01: They were his sheep, not from this flock.
SPEAKER_01: They had to hear his voice.
SPEAKER_01: What is his voice?
SPEAKER_01: It is the proclamation of his word.
SPEAKER_01: It is the gospel call.
SPEAKER_01: And when his sheep hear that, they know it, they recognize it, and they come.
SPEAKER_01: That is the sheep, that is his bride, whom he came to redeem.
SPEAKER_01: This is the people that he set his love upon from before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_01: He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: He tells us that, or so that we would be holy and blameless before him in love.
SPEAKER_01: This is God's purpose in saving us.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a time when the real understanding of the Bible is at such a low ebb even among Christians.
SPEAKER_01: The church has been so overwhelmed by this self-centered, individualistic idea of just me and Jesus, and he loves me, and if I was the only person on earth, he still would have come and died for me.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what the Bible teaches at all.
SPEAKER_01: It isn't about us.
SPEAKER_01: He saved us so that we would be holy and blameless.
SPEAKER_01: That means in his sight, in his presence.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he saved us.
SPEAKER_01: It's rescue.
SPEAKER_01: He certainly did, Revelation chapter 1, release us from our sins by his blood.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But now what?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you've opened my eyes, and I know you're my Savior.
SPEAKER_01: I know I need you.
SPEAKER_01: Now what?
SPEAKER_01: That was my question for the first almost ten years of my Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any mentors.
SPEAKER_01: And I was listening to Christian radio and just living in this kind of perpetual frustration.
SPEAKER_01: Like, how do I actually do this though?
SPEAKER_01: Like now what?
SPEAKER_01: I'm saved.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: And he tells us here to be holy.
SPEAKER_01: And how does that work?
SPEAKER_01: Just on a practical level.
SPEAKER_01: It's one thing to say, what for?
SPEAKER_01: But then you gotta make the connection.
SPEAKER_01: We're saved for this, we're saved for holiness.
SPEAKER_01: Well, how do we do that?
SPEAKER_01: And maybe the most immediately helpful passage that always comes to my mind is 2 Corinthians 3, 18.
SPEAKER_01: It says, we all with unveiled face.
SPEAKER_01: When the Lord saved us, when he caused us to be born again, he lifted the veil from us so that we could see.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are being transformed from one level of glory to the next.
SPEAKER_01: What then means, just in the barest terms, as we behold Christ, that is, where he is to be found, that's here.
SPEAKER_01: As we behold Christ, the Spirit produces the change in us.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit takes this word and applies it to us.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 5, 25, 26 says that the word, this is the water with which Christ cleanses his bride.
SPEAKER_01: He scrubs us clean with his word.
SPEAKER_01: And it is as we behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in his word that the Spirit applies it to us and uses it to change us.
SPEAKER_01: The great Puritan, one of my very favorites to read, Thomas Watson.
SPEAKER_01: I recommend him.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas Watson, he said, other books warm the heart, but this book transforms the heart.
SPEAKER_01: It transforms it.
SPEAKER_01: It takes this mess and begins to make it like Christ.
SPEAKER_01: When we come to the Lord, He takes this disfigurement of his image.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're all made in God's image.
SPEAKER_01: We know that.
SPEAKER_01: But I heard a brother the other day say, it's like when we with a fall, what it did, it didn't erase the image.
SPEAKER_01: It didn't destroy it.
SPEAKER_01: It just horribly disfigured it.
SPEAKER_01: It's like looking in one of those carnival mirrors.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can tell it's supposed to be a person, but it's so misshapen that you kind of got to look before you can figure it out.
SPEAKER_01: Very hard to discern who actually you're looking at sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the fall did to the image of God in us.
SPEAKER_01: But then again, in Ephesians, this book is so full of riches and treasure.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get there.
SPEAKER_01: In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul says, take off the old man.
SPEAKER_01: That is the old disfigured image.
SPEAKER_01: The flesh, take it off.
SPEAKER_01: I always pictured it like a pair of dirty old coveralls.
SPEAKER_01: Take those off, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on what?
SPEAKER_01: Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
SPEAKER_01: That's what this is.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means to be holy.
SPEAKER_01: It is to shed the old skin like you know snakes do.
SPEAKER_01: To shed the old self, to put to death our flesh and our sin, and to walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: And how do we do that?
SPEAKER_01: We do that by beholding Christ in his word.
SPEAKER_01: And then the Spirit uses it to take off the old man and to renew us in the spirit of our minds, and to be more and more conformed to his image in truth, in righteousness, and in holiness.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he saved us.
SPEAKER_01: He chose us from before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him, that's in his presence, and in love, it says.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there um when Rochelle read from the ESV, the ESV puts the comma on the other side.
SPEAKER_01: So the old Bible, the King James, it says, uh, predestining us, or rather, that we be holy and blameless before him in love, comma.
SPEAKER_01: The ESV says that we would be holy and blameless before him, comma.
SPEAKER_01: In love, having predestined us.
SPEAKER_01: This says, in love, comma, having predestined us.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this isn't the most critical textual issue we'll come across because punctuation wasn't even present in the in the early manuscripts.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is an interpretive, but I favor the way it is here that he chose us so that we would be holy and blameless before him in love, both ways are right.
SPEAKER_01: Both ways are right.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord predestined us in love, and he wants us to walk before him in love.
SPEAKER_01: Both are true.
SPEAKER_01: But I think that having the in love come in in an unbroken way here, that we would be holy and blameless in his sight in love, I think really captures the whole thrust of the Bible, the whole thrust of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: What is the greatest commandment?
SPEAKER_01: That we love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength.
SPEAKER_01: That is our greatest duty is to love Him.
SPEAKER_01: I want to briefly skip across a couple of passages here in Deuteronomy that really bring this out.
SPEAKER_01: So, first, um, if you don't want to flip there, it's fine, I'll read it.
SPEAKER_01: But um Deuteronomy 10 and verse uh what is it, 12.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: So now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God ask from you?
SPEAKER_01: But to fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways and love him, and to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of Yahweh and his statutes, which I'm commanding you today for your good.
SPEAKER_01: What does he want from us?
SPEAKER_01: He wants us to love him.
SPEAKER_01: That's the first and greatest commandment.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he wants.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want just a bunch of just a bunch of mindless, obedient robots.
SPEAKER_01: He could have, he could have made, he could have, if that's all he wanted, he could have skipped the fall and everything.
SPEAKER_01: And just made us so that we had absolutely no choice but to obey him.
SPEAKER_01: And there's no alternative.
SPEAKER_01: He could have done that, but he didn't.
SPEAKER_01: First John tells us God is love.
SPEAKER_01: And we are never more like him than when we love.
SPEAKER_01: And what does he want from us?
SPEAKER_01: He wants our love.
SPEAKER_01: In Deuteronomy 11, 13 to 16, it says, It will be that if you listen obediently to my commandments, which I'm commanding you today, to love Yahweh your God, and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul, that I, Yahweh, will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rains, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil, and I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: If you love me, I will pour out endless blessing.
SPEAKER_01: You will never suffer any want.
SPEAKER_01: If you will love me, Deuteronomy 11, 22.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of my favorite passages.
SPEAKER_01: If you are careful to keep this entire commandment which I am commanding you to do, and he sums it up like this: to love Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cling to him.
SPEAKER_01: That is what he wants from us.
SPEAKER_01: That is why I like the comma where it is in this version.
SPEAKER_01: That he chose us that would be holy and blameless in his presence in love.
SPEAKER_01: Because that has been his intention from the very first.
SPEAKER_01: That his people would love him.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's not primarily obedience, because what follows love?
SPEAKER_01: Obedience follows love.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus said to his disciples, if you loved me, you'd keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_01: Another place he says, Why do you say you love me, but you don't do what I tell you?
SPEAKER_01: Love is what the Lord wants from us.
SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite hymns, I don't actually know the tune, it's in my little hymnry, so it's just poetry.
SPEAKER_01: But the one line is that independent as thou art, thou dost desire my worthless heart.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord needs nothing.
SPEAKER_01: He is the only needless being.
SPEAKER_01: Yet still he desires us, he desires our love.
SPEAKER_01: You know in Ezekiel 36, that great passage on the new covenant, the Lord says, I will take out of, take from you your heart of stone, and I will put in you a heart of flesh, and I will cause you to walk according to my statutes.
SPEAKER_01: How?
SPEAKER_01: Because we will love him.
SPEAKER_01: We love him, first John says.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_01: So here, just to keep us in the flow and train of the of the passage, Paul is blessing the Lord who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: And what what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: It means that he has blessed us with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He has given us himself.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing else to give.
SPEAKER_01: Heaven has poured out all it has to offer upon us in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Just as he, the Father, chose us in him, Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we be holy and blameless before him in love.
SPEAKER_01: It is our love that he desires.
SPEAKER_01: The song of Solomon says, To know him is to love him.
SPEAKER_01: And I implore you, brothers and sisters, open up his word.
SPEAKER_01: Beg him to teach you and to change you.
SPEAKER_01: And just as Paul says in Philippians 3.10, it comes out of Paul almost like a groan.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Oh, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Even if it means being made conformable to his death and his suffering.
SPEAKER_01: If I may just know him.
SPEAKER_01: Because to know him is to love him.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Our great God, we are so amazed by you that you would be pleased to pour out every blessing upon such unworthy creatures as us.
SPEAKER_01: In order that you might not only save us, but make us holy, in order that you might restore in us that which was lost for the glory of your great name and for our good.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we confess that you love us and you give us no shortage of tokens to demonstrate your love to us.
SPEAKER_01: Chiefly that you gave your son for us.
SPEAKER_01: But we still hardly get it.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, teach us what it means.
SPEAKER_01: Teach us what it means that you loved us and gave your son for us, so that we may know what it means to love you more and more.
SPEAKER_01: That's our desire, Lord, but our sin, our flesh are in the way.
SPEAKER_01: And we need you to give us grace to fight it, to put it to death, to put to death the deeds of the flesh, and to walk in newness of life, because it is for freedom that you have set us free.
SPEAKER_01: So give us grace, Lord, to walk in that freedom and to be worthy of the calling with which you've called us.
SPEAKER_01: So that you may be honored, and so that good may be done here in Meritan in your name.
SPEAKER_01: And all this we ask in the holy name of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This podcast recording may not be reproduced without the express written consent of Sevilla Chapel, Saint Catharines.
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome to share it with family and friends.
SPEAKER_00: Adios.