SPEAKER_01: This morning, Ephesians chapter one, verses eleven and twelve, I'll read them, and then we'll begin.
SPEAKER_01: In him we have 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_01: There are essentially three different ways to plan a vacation.
SPEAKER_01: The first way, which is how Dieter and I did our honeymoon, is that we went to Argentina, we planned the destination, and then we planned that we were leaving about a month later from Chile.
SPEAKER_01: And everything in between was somewhat nebulous.
SPEAKER_01: Like we got off the plane and took a taxi into downtown Buenos Aires and then found a place to stay, kind of nebulous.
SPEAKER_01: That we wandered around the country for a few weeks, uh charting our own course.
SPEAKER_01: No agenda, no just just moving around.
SPEAKER_01: We knew we knew we got there, we knew we were leaving.
SPEAKER_01: Everything else in between was left kind of to see how things went.
SPEAKER_01: So that's one way to plan a vacation.
SPEAKER_01: That would make some of you nervous, I think.
SPEAKER_01: Another way to plan a vacation, I'm gonna call vacation by divine fiat, where I chose where we were going, I chose what flights we were we're gonna be on.
SPEAKER_01: We went to Florida for a week.
SPEAKER_01: I chose the location, I chose the flights, I chose the place we were staying, I chose you we're gonna go.
SPEAKER_01: We land on Tuesday, Wednesday we're going to Disney World, we're gonna do these rides and these orders.
SPEAKER_01: I installed the app.
SPEAKER_01: Look, it's all right there.
SPEAKER_01: The next day we're gonna go to the pool for this long, the next day with these friends at this place for that long.
SPEAKER_01: Boom, on these flights out, it's done.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
SPEAKER_01: There's another way.
SPEAKER_01: The way I will call it collaboration, that Deidre and I get together and we say, Where do you want to go?
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
SPEAKER_01: See, look, I'm learning and the progress here.
SPEAKER_01: How about let's go to California for a couple weeks?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, great.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you want to go on Tuesday and come back on the Saturday?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: How do these flights look?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Where do you want to stay?
SPEAKER_01: You want to stay with your parents, you want to stay with these people, you want to do this for a few days after a few days?
SPEAKER_01: And the two of us talk it out together and we plan it out that way.
SPEAKER_01: And lo and behold, in so doing, we discover we actually want the same things on vacation.
SPEAKER_01: So it works out very well to do that that last way.
SPEAKER_01: Now I have a question for you.
SPEAKER_01: Of those three options, which of those best describes in your mind the way you see God exercising his sovereignty over the world?
SPEAKER_01: So we're transitioning here from vacation to theology, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Everyone keeping up?
SPEAKER_01: In your mind, when it comes to God's sovereignty, does God choose the beginning?
SPEAKER_01: He'll create the world, something in the middle, there's the cross, death and resurrection of Jesus, something at the end, Jesus will come back and set up his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: The rest of it, we're just gonna let this thing play out and see what happens.
SPEAKER_01: Or does God rule the world through a singular ultimatum or meticulous d decree covering every event of all time from his singular voice?
SPEAKER_01: Or I submit to you this third approach, that when the Bible speaks of the sovereign decree of God, that it presents it in the language of a counsel, in the language of collaboration, in the language of a decree that comes from multiple persons.
SPEAKER_01: Now I will clarify this language a little bit later, but I just want you to notice it first, before we talk more about it, in verse 11, that all things are worked according to the counsel of his will.
SPEAKER_01: That when the Bible speaks of the divine decree of God, it usually uses it in language like counsel or covenant in Luke 22, which implies multiple people or some kind of action from many voices.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the way the Bible describes the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_01: But the catch here, the thing you need to understand is that as God gives his decree about how the world will come to pass and all that will take place in it, he does convene a council, but you and I are not on that council.
SPEAKER_01: We were not consulted.
SPEAKER_01: We were not brought into the throne room of God and asked, how do you think I should do this?
SPEAKER_01: And God didn't partner with us.
SPEAKER_01: There is no give and take and compromise between us and God and his sovereign plan for the world.
SPEAKER_01: So who are the people involved in the council?
SPEAKER_01: And I think you learn in Ephesians 1 that this is a Trinitarian council.
SPEAKER_01: That the three persons involved in the plan for the ages are the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: This plan comes from three voices who have a united will.
SPEAKER_01: The Father and the Son and the Spirit all share one will.
SPEAKER_01: It's not as if the Father wants one thing and the Son wants a different and the Spirit wants a third, and so they have to figure out a way to work together and cooperate here.
SPEAKER_01: No, the three persons share a united will.
SPEAKER_01: They share one will.
SPEAKER_01: All three persons are equal in majesty and glory and honor.
SPEAKER_01: They all possess all attributes of deity, including the divine will, but the Bible presents these three persons as operating together, yet distinctly.
SPEAKER_01: When the Bible speaks of the decree of God, it presents it into the world as coming through not one person, but three.
SPEAKER_01: Now you see this hinted at in the book of Ephesians and taught explicitly later on here, but just look up at verse one.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so this concept of the will of God is what's driving the book of Ephesians is introduced at the very beginning there.
SPEAKER_01: And then we see that it comes to us through multiple voices.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2, grace to you in peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so this will of God, this secret will of God is coming into the world through both God our Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You see it again in verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.
SPEAKER_01: There's the third person, with every spiritual blessing.
SPEAKER_01: And so you see the Father and the Son and the Spirit working together to bring this divine will into the world.
SPEAKER_01: Again, he chose us, verse 4, in him.
SPEAKER_01: The Father chose us in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In love, he predestined us, verse 5, through Christ, according to the purpose of his will.
SPEAKER_01: So there is this Father, Son, and Spirit working together, predestinating, choosing, adopting through his will.
SPEAKER_01: The Son redeems according to his will.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit, we'll look at his role in this next week in verses 13 to 14, saves people according to his will.
SPEAKER_01: And all three persons are operating under the same will.
SPEAKER_01: So why is it significant to say that it's a council of his will or a covenant of his will or to present it coming through multiple voices instead of through one singular voice?
SPEAKER_01: And there's some differences that I think are key.
SPEAKER_01: When you say that a will happens by one singular voice, one person plans something, one person acts on it, one person does it, it implies some kind of selfishness, it implies some kind of scheming, it implies some kind of fiat for his own ends.
SPEAKER_01: But when you describe something as collaborative, it implies self-love and sacrifice that I'm doing something because I love you and you're doing something because you love me, and there's there's we're working with an intellect and a love and a community that's absent if it's one person.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's so critical to see the fingerprints of the Trinity all over Ephesians 1.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you're talking about predestination and you're talking about election, and you're talking about the divine and secret will of God, it's critical to see that God presents it as an act of love between three persons.
SPEAKER_01: As they give to each other and as they love each other, and as they work with each other to glorify each other.
SPEAKER_01: It is very self-deferential.
SPEAKER_01: As each person, the trinity pursues each other, magnifying each other, glorifying each other, loving each other.
SPEAKER_01: That's the nature of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Christianity is a religion of love.
SPEAKER_01: Whereas religions that don't have the Trinity tend to be authoritarian.
SPEAKER_01: Because the very root of our concept of divine counsel and divine providence and divine will is this image of love and community even within the Godhead.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible describes this through the language of a council in verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: As a plan or as a covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Theologians often refer to this as the covenant of redemption, the plan between the Father and the Son and the Spirit of how to create and save.
SPEAKER_01: If the phrase covenant of redemption makes you nervous, call it a plan of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: You can call it whatever you want, a covenant of redemption, a plan of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Even the phrase a plan of salvation, notice what that implies.
SPEAKER_01: When you describe the gospel as a plan of salvation, whose plan?
SPEAKER_01: Clearly God's.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the covenant of redemption is.
SPEAKER_01: That's a theological textbook's definition.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a Bible verse about this.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Timothy 1, verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Listen carefully to this.
SPEAKER_01: God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace.
SPEAKER_01: That God saved us, not based on things we had done, not working for salvation, but based on God's own purpose that he has inside of himself, which he gave us in Christ before the ages begin.
SPEAKER_01: That's 2 Timothy 1.9.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, God has a purpose within the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: That purpose breaks through into this world through the gospel, but it was planned before the ages begin.
SPEAKER_01: That is the eternal plan of salvation, the covenant of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: So what is this plan?
SPEAKER_01: What does this plan entail?
SPEAKER_01: I want to use that as an outline this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I want to look at the components of the covenant of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: What the covenant of redemption entails.
SPEAKER_01: And again, some people aren't comfortable with the word covenant there that makes their skin crawl.
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't like covenant of redemption, swap out plan of salvation or whatever floats your theological boat.
SPEAKER_01: When God plans salvation before creation, what does his plan entail?
SPEAKER_01: That's the question I want to answer this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And let me give you my answer here at the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: And this is going to be up on the screen all morning long, so don't break your wrist writing it down right now.
SPEAKER_01: The covenant of redemption includes the sending of the Savior, the dying of the Savior, the rising of the Savior, the actual salvation, the saving of the Savior, and the ruling of the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: All of this is planned by God from before the foundation of time.
SPEAKER_01: I want to look at these one at a time this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And as we do so, let me just let you know.
SPEAKER_01: This is going to be less of a sermon and more of a Bible study.
SPEAKER_01: So normally I'm more in a preaching mode.
SPEAKER_01: This is my attempt at more of a teaching mode this morning, more of kind of a Bible study.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to branch out from Ephesians 1, verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you kind of a survey of what the Bible says about the covenant of redemption to give you insight into all that is in the mind of God that's revealed to us in the scripture about how and why he has planned salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And this begins, of course, with God's design that he would send a Savior to the world.
SPEAKER_01: Our first indication that this is God's plan is back in Genesis 3, when sin enters the world, God declares that the seed of the woman will come and be born, that a person will be born and she will crush, the Savior will crush the head of the serpent.
SPEAKER_01: That evil will, from her seed will come a person who will crush the head of the serpent.
SPEAKER_01: That's all that Genesis 3 says about this.
SPEAKER_01: But as the Old Testament unfolds, you realize that the whole narrative is pushing towards the advent of the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: The Savior will be stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God, that God will strike this person.
SPEAKER_01: At the same time, the scriptures make clear that the Savior will also be God.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah says, speaking for Yahweh, that he will not share his glory with another.
SPEAKER_01: Though God the Father will strike the Savior, the God the Father will crucify the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: At the same time, the Savior will be God.
SPEAKER_01: A huge mystery in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: How can the Savior be both David's son and David's Lord, to put it that way?
SPEAKER_01: How can the Savior be a person and but be sent by God and yet be God?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the word Messiah even means the word Messiah means sent one.
SPEAKER_01: Sent by who?
SPEAKER_01: Well, sent by God.
SPEAKER_01: This has always been the plan that God would send himself.
SPEAKER_01: Specifically, the Father would send the Son.
SPEAKER_01: Now, yesterday I read the Gospel of John, looking for all of the verses, all the descriptions of the Father sending the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: By my count, I counted 41 of them.
SPEAKER_01: There may be more than that.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I came up with.
SPEAKER_01: There's probably another nine or so in the New Testament, which puts you to about 50 times.
SPEAKER_01: The New Testament describes the Messiah as being sent by the Father, sent by God from before creation.
SPEAKER_01: Let me show you a couple of those.
SPEAKER_01: I won't show you all 41 of them, because the fruit of the Spirit is self-control.
SPEAKER_01: But I will show you a couple of them.
SPEAKER_01: One, John 6, John 6, verse 38, Jesus speaking, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what's behind Jesus' words here.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm coming to the world.
SPEAKER_01: I am not operating on my own agenda, but I'm operating with a divine agenda.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the one who sent me, God the Father, I'm operating on his will.
SPEAKER_01: Now remember, the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, share a will here.
SPEAKER_01: And so what Jesus is indicating is that in his humanity, he's not operating on his own human will.
SPEAKER_01: He's not setting out on his own, but rather all that he's doing is in accordance with the will of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let me put it to you this way: Jesus, when he came to earth, is not going rogue.
SPEAKER_01: It's not as if the world fell into sin and the father and son and spirit are watching this happen, and Jesus sneaks away and comes to the earth and leads a sinless life and dies a substitutionary death, and then hopes the father appreciates it.
SPEAKER_01: Hopes the father receives a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: No, he's not going rogue here.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming in accordance with the divine will.
SPEAKER_01: This is the will of God that he would come.
SPEAKER_01: And he was sent.
SPEAKER_01: And I say to you, this sending happens even before time.
SPEAKER_01: Let me show you another verse that indicates that.
SPEAKER_01: John 3, verse 34.
SPEAKER_01: For he whom God has sent utters the words of God.
SPEAKER_01: Another sending passage.
SPEAKER_01: And what John is saying here is that Jesus, the Savior, the Messiah, the sent one, speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.
SPEAKER_01: God has given Jesus the Spirit without measure.
SPEAKER_01: The prophets got the Spirit in a restrained way.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has the Spirit unveiled, fully spirit-filled.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's speaking the words of God.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, when he's speaking in his life, is not speaking on his own authority, but speaking on the authority of God himself, specifically the authority of God the Father, who sent Jesus as the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, in the sending of Jesus, the Father has given all things in the world to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has authority over the world because the Father gave it to him.
SPEAKER_01: This has been the plan.
SPEAKER_01: Just as the Father loves the Son.
SPEAKER_01: When did the Father start loving the Son, by the way?
SPEAKER_01: He's always loved the Son.
SPEAKER_01: In eternity past, he's loved the Son.
SPEAKER_01: And part of this love is that the Father is giving all things to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see in here how the plan of salvation at the heart of it is the love of God for himself.
SPEAKER_01: That the Father loves the Son so much, he gives the world to him.
SPEAKER_01: The Father loves the Son so much, he gives his elect to him.
SPEAKER_01: These people that he will save.
SPEAKER_01: And the Son loves the Father so much, he will save them and he will sanctify them, and then he will give them back to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: The church, in a very real sense, is a gift from the Father to the Son that when the Son acquires, he sanctifies and gives right back to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: We are an example of how much the Father loves the Son, and we are an example of how much the Son loves the Father.
SPEAKER_01: That's the importance of seeing this as a counsel, a divine will here between the Father, Son, and Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: They are loving each other and serving each other just in the very nature of the gospel and sending the Son is an example of the Father's love for the Son.
SPEAKER_01: The Father sends the Son because he loves him.
SPEAKER_01: And the Son goes because he loves the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Well, he doesn't just come on a mission, he comes with a specific mission, and his mission is to die.
SPEAKER_01: John 10, verse 18 says, This is a Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Not even around the time he's going to die, several days before.
SPEAKER_01: He says, No one takes my life from me.
SPEAKER_01: But I lay it down on my own accord.
SPEAKER_01: I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_01: When he dies on the cross, it's not as if his life was robbed from him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was most certainly murdered, but he gave up his own life.
SPEAKER_01: He breathed out his last.
SPEAKER_01: He declared from the cross, Father, into your hands I commit, I submit my spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I'm giving you my spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I'm surrendering my spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus, though he was killed by sinful hands, surrenders his life to God.
SPEAKER_01: He is in charge of his own death.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says it is appointed for man once to die.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it doesn't matter how much you worry about your life or you worry about coronavirus, you are not going to add or take away one second from your life.
SPEAKER_01: It is appointed to you exactly when you're going to die.
SPEAKER_01: And the same thing is true with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It was appointed for him when he would die.
SPEAKER_01: Here is the difference.
SPEAKER_01: You and I were not involved in the appointment of our own death.
SPEAKER_01: We weren't consulted.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus was very much involved in the appointment of his death.
SPEAKER_01: It was from the divine counsel, the sovereignty of God, the part of the decree that the Son of God was part of.
SPEAKER_01: And the Father gives Jesus authority over his own life.
SPEAKER_01: And he lays his life down.
SPEAKER_01: Why is this?
SPEAKER_01: Look at the end of that first, John 10, 18.
SPEAKER_01: This charge I received from my father.
SPEAKER_01: When did the father give Jesus that authority?
SPEAKER_01: Before time.
SPEAKER_01: He gave him a charge.
SPEAKER_01: Here the language is a charge.
SPEAKER_01: So we've seen counsel, will, covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a charge.
SPEAKER_01: The father charges Jesus to do this.
SPEAKER_01: Charge here is just another word for the covenant of redemption, the plan of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It's pointing you into the secret things of God, into the hidden.
SPEAKER_01: Secret communication within the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: What were the persons of the Trinity talking about before creation?
SPEAKER_01: What were they planning?
SPEAKER_01: What were they designing before they spoke the world into existence?
SPEAKER_01: What were they talking about?
SPEAKER_01: And you get an example here.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things they were talking about is that the Savior would die, the Son of God would become a human being and die for sinners.
SPEAKER_01: John 17, verse 4 reiterates it this way is Jesus' high priestly prayer.
SPEAKER_01: This is the night before he dies, the night he's betrayed.
SPEAKER_01: He prays, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus says, I've I've run my race.
SPEAKER_01: I've done what you sent me to do.
SPEAKER_01: The Father gave Jesus, God gave Jesus things to do.
SPEAKER_01: He has done them.
SPEAKER_01: And now, verse 5, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
SPEAKER_01: So the night that Jesus is betrayed, there is a cord running from his heart all the way through his life, all the way back into eternity past, all the way back to the triune fellowship of God from before the world existed.
SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: That Jesus says this glory, this intra-trinitarian between the three persons of the Trinity, this glory and love and fellowship that they have results in him being sent to earth and dying for us.
SPEAKER_01: That would be a very sad plan if it ended there.
SPEAKER_01: But of course, the plan continues.
SPEAKER_01: Acts 13, verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: We bring you, this is Paul preaching, we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So what Paul's saying here is that the Old Testament promises the Savior will die, but be resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: And I wish we had time to look at all those promises.
SPEAKER_01: We don't, but Abraham's conversation with Isaac would be one of them.
SPEAKER_01: Even the Davidic covenant would be another one.
SPEAKER_01: There's several examples in the Old Testament where God prophesies that the Savior will be resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul doesn't stop with those promises.
SPEAKER_01: He's not content to have people flip to the book of Genesis and see how God promised the Savior would be resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: Paul has something even earlier in mind.
SPEAKER_01: He quotes Psalm 2: You are my son, today I have begotten you.
SPEAKER_01: So he goes even further back.
SPEAKER_01: That's a decree in Psalm 2.
SPEAKER_01: That's a conversation among the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: Before time began, the second person of the Trinity is the eternal Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: There was never a time where Jesus became the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: He's always been the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so when it says, Today I have begotten you, today you are my son.
SPEAKER_01: This is referencing an eternity past.
SPEAKER_01: If we have an eternal father, we have an eternal son.
SPEAKER_01: As long as God has been a father, he has had a son.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul says, You know Jesus was going to rise from the grave because of who he is.
SPEAKER_01: He's the eternal Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Of course he would be resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: In the very nature of the Trinity is this idea that the Savior would come and be resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection becomes a picture of the sonship of Christ rooted in eternity past.
SPEAKER_01: And it's because of the resurrection that he can be the Savior, also appointed in eternity past, which leads to the next component of this covenant of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: That the Savior would also actually save people.
SPEAKER_01: This wouldn't be hypothetical.
SPEAKER_01: He would really save people, and that's from the divine plan and counsel of God.
SPEAKER_01: That's John 6, verse 38.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, verse 39.
SPEAKER_01: This is the will of him who sent me, Jesus says, speaking of the Father, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
SPEAKER_01: This is a description here that the Father has given Jesus people whom he has chosen, whom he's predestined, whom he's elected, and he's given them to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, I'm going to go get them and I am going to save them and raise them up with me.
SPEAKER_01: And again, he's not acting in isolation here.
SPEAKER_01: He's acting in collaboration with the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: The Father and the Son and the Spirit are all in this together.
SPEAKER_01: This is the will of my Father, Jesus says, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: And I will raise him up on the last day.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is going to come, he's going to be crucified, and every person who looks at themselves and sees their sin and looks at the Savior and sees their only hope, they put their hope in him and they believe in him, they will have eternal life, and they too will be resurrected, just like Jesus was.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's the divine plan of God.
SPEAKER_01: That's the eternal will of God.
SPEAKER_01: This is what I mean when I often say that God is a savior by nature.
SPEAKER_01: I've had people ask me, what do you mean when you say God's a savior by nature?
SPEAKER_01: This is what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: That within the divine counsel of the Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Spirit, they have planned and purposed this.
SPEAKER_01: The three persons of the Trinity love each other so much.
SPEAKER_01: They desire to show their love and their glory to a race of people, believers, redeemed, saved, that can magnify the grace of God by seeing how he is a loving, self-giving, omnibenevolent is my new favorite phrase.
SPEAKER_01: Just he loves to give himself.
SPEAKER_01: It keeps going into the future where he will be ruling.
SPEAKER_01: I will tell the decree of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 2, verse 7 says, this is the same psalm that was quoted earlier in Acts 13.
SPEAKER_01: I will tell the decree of Yahweh when he said to me, You are my son, today I've begotten you.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, this is going into eternity past when that happens.
SPEAKER_01: Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, the ends of the earth your possession.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, in that pre-time plan, before time began, God did not only plan that the Father would send the Son and the Son would die on the cross, and the Son would rise, and the Son would save, but also that the Son would rule over the nations.
SPEAKER_01: Ask of me, he says.
SPEAKER_01: And when does this conversation take place?
SPEAKER_01: Before time.
SPEAKER_01: And the ends of the earth will be yours.
SPEAKER_01: The New Testament declares that this will be fulfilled with the second coming of Christ, that he will return to earth, he will set up his kingdom, he will reign over the nations from Israel.
SPEAKER_01: This is described in Haggai chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: He will shake the nations, and their wealth and the treasure will come to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: It's described in Hebrews chapter 12, in the second half of Hebrews 12.
SPEAKER_01: This takes place at the second coming of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And then again in Revelation 20, where he will reign for a thousand years.
SPEAKER_01: He will take the earth as his possession.
SPEAKER_01: Here in Psalm 2, it connects the eternal sonship of Christ to being the reigning Savior on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: When you take all of this together, you come away convinced of this basic fact.
SPEAKER_01: If there was no covenant of redemption, if there was no plan of salvation between the Father and the Son and the Spirit, there would be no way for sinful people to be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_01: And there'd be, oh, would there be no creation?
SPEAKER_01: Why would God create a world unless it was for his glory?
SPEAKER_01: And how could it reveal his glory if he is self-loving and self-giving by nature without a savior?
SPEAKER_01: And so all of this is leading us to the fact that God is a savior and creates the world to demonstrate that.
SPEAKER_01: That's the covenant of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Now, all of that is introduction.
SPEAKER_01: I have five minutes left for the sermon, which I'm excited about.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: In Him we have obtained an inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Our inheritance is all the riches of this plan, all the riches of what God wants to share with us.
SPEAKER_01: That's ours.
SPEAKER_01: And it's ours because we're in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's ours because we're predestined.
SPEAKER_01: But how do we get this?
SPEAKER_01: Do we go get it ourselves?
SPEAKER_01: Do we storm heaven ourselves and acquire it?
SPEAKER_01: Do we wrestle it from God's hand?
SPEAKER_01: Do we earn it by our own strength and our own merit?
SPEAKER_01: Do we get this salvation?
SPEAKER_01: That's not the way scripture describes it.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11 says, In him we have obtained.
SPEAKER_01: Might not be obvious in English, but in Greek, this is a passive verb.
SPEAKER_01: That means an active verb would mean you obtained it.
SPEAKER_01: You went and got it.
SPEAKER_01: Active.
SPEAKER_01: Passive verb is it happened to you.
SPEAKER_01: Here we are, sinful and separated from God, aliens to the promises, isolated from the covenant and the commonwealth of Israel, away from his inheritance, away from his blessings, away from these spiritual riches.
SPEAKER_01: And then we receive them.
SPEAKER_01: It happens to us.
SPEAKER_01: When did this happen to us?
SPEAKER_01: If you look carefully, this is past tense.
SPEAKER_01: You can recognize that in English.
SPEAKER_01: This has already happened.
SPEAKER_01: Well, when did this happen?
SPEAKER_01: When did we receive the inheritance?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11 says, Because we were predestined.
SPEAKER_01: That's when it happened.
SPEAKER_01: These are contemporaneous verbs.
SPEAKER_01: When we were predestined, we received the inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: And then all the rest of history is God's sovereign working out of his will.
SPEAKER_01: All things according to the counsel of this will.
SPEAKER_01: This is a loving will, a sacrificial will.
SPEAKER_01: But it's a will that covers all things.
SPEAKER_01: There's a federal law that requires that preachers make this joke at this point.
SPEAKER_01: I looked up what all things means in the Greek, and you know what it means?
SPEAKER_01: You've heard the joke.
SPEAKER_01: All things.
SPEAKER_01: So if something exists, it exists for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And all things exist for the glory of God to demonstrate his divine will, particularly in how he will save his children.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12, so that we were the first to hope in Christ might do so to the praise of his glory, so that we who have been saved are saved so that we can praise him all the more.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he's saving us so that we can praise him.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he is pursuing us so that we can praise him.
SPEAKER_01: That's why after having saved us, he still works in our life to cause us to grow in godliness as we worship him all the more.
SPEAKER_01: So if something is going on in your life that is going on in your life, if you're not a Christian, so that you would be saved, or so that others would be saved, or if you are a Christian, so that you would grow in your faith, or so that others could be saved.
SPEAKER_01: That's what God is doing.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what's he doing with his providence?
SPEAKER_01: What's he doing with his sovereignty?
SPEAKER_01: He's directing all things in the world so that his children would come to faith and then grow in faith to the praise of his glorious grace.
SPEAKER_01: Not to the praise of our own works, not to the praise of her own efforts, our own ingenuity, or our own integrity or any of that, because then we would be the objects of praise.
SPEAKER_01: Things only make sense when God is at the center of them and you relate them back to God.
SPEAKER_01: You ask, how is God using this for his glory?
SPEAKER_01: How is God using this for his own salvation?
SPEAKER_01: So does something exist?
SPEAKER_01: Then you know what God's using it for.
SPEAKER_01: Be it cancer or coronavirus or a car crash.
SPEAKER_01: God is using it to bring his children to faith and to strengthen their faith.
SPEAKER_01: Be it luck or the lottery, be it wealth or wisdom, jobs or joy, sorrow or suffering, everything that exists exists that those who put their hope in Christ would do so to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we're thankful that you are a savior by nature and that you work all things for the praise of your glorious grace.
SPEAKER_01: We are just crushed with our own sense of sin and inadequacy and then overflowing with joy that despite our sin, you have saved us.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing we could do to deserve this, nothing we could do to earn this.
SPEAKER_01: It just happened to us by your own secret plan.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I pray that our confidence in your sovereign control of this world would grow when we see that you direct all things, not with ambivalence, not with a sense of fatalism, but you direct all things with the care of a loving Father, a merciful Son, and a joyful spirit.
SPEAKER_01: You direct all things so that we might believe that you are the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Knowing that all who believe that Jesus Christ died for their sin and rose from the grave will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: This is the plan of God.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for anyone here today who does not know you, that has never given their life to you, that has never trusted in you.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that today they would see their sin, they would see their separation from you, and see that from before we were even made, you set your love on us.
SPEAKER_01: We're thankful, God, for your your eternal promises of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the name of Christ we pray.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being with us today.
SPEAKER_00: And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuelbible.church.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not a member of the local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here in Dominion.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_01: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_01: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel globally.