A Study In Ephesians: God's Eternal Plan

A Study In Ephesians: God's Eternal Plan, Ephesians 1:3-14

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Thank you, Sandra. Well, good morning, everyone. And uh that's a great, great text for us uh that's just getting us started into the book of Ephesians. Uh so uh I'm really excited to teach on that passage this morning, so much there. Um that being said, uh if you are a guest here at Point, this is your first time here, we just want to say uh special welcome to you, thankful that you're here. Uh some of you were invited by a friend or a family member, so thanks for taking a risk and showing up. And uh we're glad that you are here. And if you are a guest, uh let me remind you that uh we there's some ways you can get more connected here if that's something you're interested in. Uh one of the simple ways is at the back of the room, my left, your right, on your way out. Uh we have what we call the connection point, which is a place that you can talk to someone and say, Hey, I'd like to know more about how to get involved here. Um it's a great place to go after the service is over today. Um, you can also pick up a small gift that's there just to say thank you for being our guest. Um, one other thing that is happening today, and I want to kind of go ahead and precursor this because um at the end of the service, we will kind of wrap up our time and then we have a lunch that's a free lunch planned out already with child care for those of you that might need it. Uh foods available so that we can simply tell you and get to know you better, tell you about point who we are, why we do what we do, how we do it, how you can get get involved here. So if that's something you're interested in, um encourage you to stick around. Uh we'd love for you to be a part of that. And uh we're already planned for it. So, all right. Um if you did not get a worship guide when you came in, if you just lift your hand real quick, you could raise your hand. Uh, we've got some ushers at the back. And if you guys don't mind, I would love to have the lights up so I can see all of y'all's faces. Right now I can see like three trains coming at me. Um at least that's what it feels like. So um can somebody hit those lights back there, maybe. Sweet. Okay. Um thanks to the crew back in the back always being so awesome and taking care of us. Hey, there you are. I can actually see your faces now. That's great. Um and you can see your Bibles too, which is great. So we uh just want to reiterate that that worship guide that's being handed out is a is a great place to take some notes. In fact, there's fill in the blanks for those of you who like that kind of thing. Uh we'll try to make sure that all of you ain't over 10 of people are able to get every little f blank filled in before you leave. Uh but also it's a great way to just follow up with what we're talking about on Sundays, and then we encourage you. I did not bring mine up here onto the platform this morning, but we have an Ephesians study that we are working through. Um, and we are encouraging you to show up on Sunday already having prepared to study the text. So we're asking you not to come and just receive from us, uh, though you can do that, especially if you're a guest your first time or you weren't here last week. You can show up and you can actually um learn, I'm sure, and enjoy the word. But we want to encourage you to be prepared before you even come by working through this Ephesians study guide. Uh they're available also at the connection point. You can grab one on your way out today. And uh it's a simple way to walk you through how do you actually study God's Word. How do you actually engage in this amazing, miraculous, uh, life-giving book we call the Bible that is God inspiring these men uh many, many years ago to write down these words that still have impact and meaning for us today. And so I want to encourage you uh to join us in that process. And as one other piece of that before we dive into the text today, just to encourage you that we don't want you to just hear these things on Sunday, but we want to invite you to participate in community with someone, okay? Uh we have what we call life groups. They're they're groups that meet in homes uh during the week, and they're a great place to have discussion, conversation, uh really talk about what we're learning, um, things that maybe are new, uh, and new ideas, perspectives, but also more importantly, uh, how do we then take that and apply that to our lives personally? And so we would encourage you, invite you if you do not have a life group that you're a part of. I already mentioned starting point, that's a great way, or even the connection point back here. Um, good options to get involved in a group. We can tell you about that, okay? Um, even if you don't have a life group, you can simply talk through some of the text during the week, and there's a reading plan uh on the back of this worship guide. And what you'll notice is that this week in particular, uh we'll start a new way of reading very, very slowly through the book of Ephesians. Uh, there's so much in each verse, and so there's only maybe two or three verses per day to read through and to really sit and think about and ask the Lord to speak to you. And there's even a plan, uh, some guide on how to do that. Okay? Um for some of you that may be completely brand new. Uh some of you may have never actually read the Bible for yourself, and that's that's awesome if that's where you are, and today might be a good start for you, a good opportunity to start the process. And I believe that God will speak to you if you get out his word and you listen to what it says. So Sandra has already read the text for today, and as I said last week, I have been so pumped about getting into this book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians tells us uh what the church is, who the church is, and how it actually works. Okay, and so it's a real simple simple uh summary of what we're looking at. But notice that when Paul actually starts this book on who the church is and how it works, that he doesn't start with just saying, okay, here's what you do. You uh you get a space and you get some people together in a room and you sing some songs and you preach some sermons and you take up an offering. That's not how he does it, right? He starts at this cosmic, massive, redemptive plan of God, and he starts to explain to us how that we as these uh finite human beings down here on this earth are under this amazing God who has this incredible eternal plan, okay? And so to that end, we're gonna look at this text today, and I want to go ahead and apologize because we're not gonna be able to cover every significant word or phrase in this section. In fact, this whole series, you're gonna feel like, whoa, what about what about that? What about that? And that's where your personal study, that's where groups, and that's where even if you want to come up after a service and say, What about this? We'd be happy to have that conversation with you. But let's let's engage the text in more than just the sermons, let's engage it in all of life and see if God can grow us and develop us in our understanding of Him and how He actually wants us to live. So here's what's crazy. What Sandra just read is actually one sentence in Greek. Okay? And Greek is, by the way, in case you didn't know this, it's what the New Testament is written in, uh, Koine Greek, which isn't even used anymore. Uh they use now a different type of Greek, but it is Koine Greek, and it was written in that whole section, verse 3 through 14, is one sentence. Paul had some run-on problems, okay? Um, and so basically, like in that sentence, it's 202 Greek words. Anyone have any sentences like that? Um we've been working with our kids through, you know, their educational process and teaching them to write and they're learning, and we say, don't do that. But hey, I guess in this situation it was okay because it is the Apostle Paul, so we're not going to criticize him for that. He was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he was just excited, okay? Let's just give him that. He was excited about the plan that God was laying out, and he was understanding that and he was trying to convey that. So in his excitement, he just said, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, okay? And so now we have like what 15 sentences to make up his one. So uh in that 202 words, what's important to understand is if you're gonna if you're going to get to the heart of a sentence, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go kind of educational on you here, you have to know what what the subject is and what the predicate is, okay? Uh let's let's go back to English 101. You gotta know what the subject is and you gotta know what the predicate is, okay? Now there's some people laughing up here because they're part of the education system that my kids are involved in. And we're still teaching this, okay, but they get kind of geeked out about this stuff, all right? That being said, um, if you were to look at this whole 202 words that comprises one massive sentence in the Greek, you would look at verse 9 and verse 10 as really the core of all that's being said by Paul that's then modified by all these phrases and all these clauses and all these other uh words that he's you know describing and uh intensifying through the description that's there, okay? So, with that being said, we're gonna kind of land on that first this morning, um, in that one of the things that you will feel as a human being, if you're honest, okay? I'm guessing all of you have had this experience at some point, is at some point in your life, if not many points in your life, you're gonna ask this question Does all of this life, does this actually have a purpose? Is there really anything significant going on in this whole thing called life? Maybe more personally, we ask the question, do I have a purpose? Do I have, is there something bigger going on here than just me like living a life and trying to survive and trying to make it the best version it could possibly be as I prepare to die one day? Is it that I'm just going through this whole process we call life, just trying to earn a paycheck, put some money away for retirement, uh raise some good kids, do some things that are fun, like go on cool vacations. Like, is there something bigger than all this? I'm guessing that in this room, every one of us at some point have asked those questions. Uh maybe we're just kind of going through life and it's so busy and it's so chaotic that we haven't stopped lately to really let ourselves think deeply about that. But it is very, very important this morning that we understand that we as human beings, and again, as I described this earlier, and our finiteness, our smallness, um without God, this whole thing just doesn't make sense. This whole thing called life is just basically us going through some activities of sorts, but it really doesn't come together with any sort of transcendent purpose. It's in God we actually find ultimate purpose. But here's the thing. As I said, if you're going to understand the core of this first massive sentence in the Greek language, what we understand at a very simplistic level is that God actually has a plan. Now that might sound very elementary for some of you in this room, but I'm guessing that at times you're kind of wondering, God, do you actually have a plan in this? Is there really something going on here that has a point and a purpose that's bigger than what I'm experiencing right now? And the answer from Scripture, specifically the words of Paul this morning, is yes. God has an ultimate plan for humanity. Many people can believe that there's no ultimate plan. Uh that there's not really any meaning. Uh some of you are aware of, even like Shakespeare's Macbeth. You know, it's like just life is meaningless, right? It's just meaningless. Uh, you can maybe even feel like the writer of Ecclesiastes. If you haven't read that book lately, go read that, and that'll put you in depression. Um, unless you understand what he's really driving at. Because he says things like, it's all meaningless, all vanity, right? But then you see he even has his own awakening to know, but God gives everything meaning, purpose. Within that, we find that people are just kind of going through life, like I said. And in verse 9, he says this. This is God saying he has a plan through the through Paul. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure that he planned in him for the administration of the days of fulfillment. What's the administration of the days of fulfillment? Well, that's the end of history, the end of time, okay? He's basically as history is unfolding, God's plan is unfolding. God's plan is being made known. This mysterious will. The reason why we can struggle, again, let's just be honest, is because we just don't know everything. We don't see everything. We don't have God's perspective of history, we don't have his view of time. I mean, we could spend a whole section of the sermon this morning, we're not going to, just simply on the fact that God doesn't exist in time. God is not confined by time like we are. We think very linearly, right? When we look at the timeline on a wall, we say, okay, here's human history. God is above all of that. And he, in his whole purpose, his grand design, he is working out this masterful plan because he alone has that God seat. He's the only one who's on the throne. As the psalmist says, he's on the throne. Uh, the heavens are his throne room, the earth is his footstool. He sees it all. He knows your beginning and he knows your end, and he knows everything before all that and after all that. Because he's God. Now, for some of you, that's a hard pill to swallow. And that's okay. In fact, I actually think it's a good thing to push back and to wrestle that out. But if you're completely honest, again, with yourself intellectually, there are things that you do not know and you do not understand, that you experience in life, even if you're in the world of science. Right? In fact, I think the more you study science, the more you come to this question that scientists can't answer, which is why. The more you study the world and all of creation, it actually pushes us towards this idea that there is a why out there that we just can't get our minds around because we're humans and we have a limited capacity, we have a limited understanding. Hopefully, we don't bow up against that. Hopefully, we are humbled by it. But in our lives, we're going to experience some moments where we say, Is there a plan? And God says, Yes, I have a plan. And that plan, as we will see in verse 10, the second half, he says this. This is his plan. To bring everything together in the Messiah. And if you're not familiar with the word Messiah, we're referring to Jesus Christ Himself. But he says, to bring together everything in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in him. Now, the reason why Ephesians is so amazing when you start to really understand is that you understand the expanse of what Paul is talking about, the enormity, the massive realities that he's talking about. He's not just talking about us uh in this room as a particular people in a particular place in a particular time. He's talking about all of human history for all time and all geographies and all space, okay? He's saying God has this plan that he is working out, and it's absolutely mind-blowing. And hopefully, even as I've been praying for myself, we would have a fresh sense of awe and wonder about that reality this morning. Okay? We wouldn't try to reason it away or dismiss it, but that we would actually like say, wow, wow, God, you're big. You are awesome. You are far more than I even give you credit for. And so we see how God's plan is being laid out to bring everything together in the Messiah. We're gonna talk about how he does that in just a minute, but it is interesting, bringing it together in Christ, in the Messiah, is that from the beginning, when creation was very first established, um sin entered this the world through man's rebellion. And when sin enters world uh through rebellion, fracture happens, splintering happens. Everything is blown apart, right? Um everything in the world that was unified and connected and intimately uh connected, in particular, unified with the heart of God, was splintered in the fall when people disregarded God's instruction to them, as in Adam and Eve specifically rebelling against God's one instruction to them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so when he says he's gonna bring it back together, he's saying he's gonna put all the things that are splintered now, fractured, all of our human relationships, all the fact that we're at odds with creation, all the facts that we're at with odds with God, he's gonna bring all that back together in Christ. Okay? That's a very simplistic way to think about it, but think everything just got blown to smithereens and he's gonna put it all back together. You ever broken something in your house and tried to super glue it back together? I I had to do that far too many times as a kid. Um, because I would break something, throwing a ball, my mom had said, Don't throw the ball, you're gonna break something. You know, there it goes. And then to try to put it all back together, and it never looked right. Okay, I never was very good at it. It always looked definitely broken. And uh, but to think about putting the whole world back together, all of humanity, all of creation, for all of time, the way that God originally designed, it's it's an amazing thought. And yet God says that's gonna happen, and it's gonna happen again in Christ. Now, God has a plan, but his plan centers on Jesus. We've already talked about Jesus quite a bit, but it his plan centers on Jesus. Uh, ten times in these verses, ten times he says, in Jesus, or in the Messiah, or in Christ. Do you think Paul's trying to make a point? Absolutely. Anytime you're reading the Bible, if you see repetition, you say, Oh, this is important. And ten times he says, in Christ, in him, in the Messiah. Okay? So the point that I'm making is obvious from Paul that Christ is at the center of God's plan to bring everything back together. Okay? He's at the center. Well, let's go on and say, like, what does that mean? Well, there's three things I want to see that Christ provides, that Christ, uh, why Christ is at the center of this. First, we see Christ's provision. We see Christ's provision. Um, in the text, verses 3 through 14, each of these we could spend hours meditating on. In fact, we could spend the rest of our lives just focusing on verse 3. Okay? But in this text, already we've sing a song this morning called Who You Say I Am. And Jada brought up the text from verse 4 about adoption and about God choosing us. Well, it says that in this text that we were adopted through Jesus Christ. You see, Jesus Christ is the is the ab uh the gateway to adoption. It goes on to say in verse 7 that we were redeemed in him. That there's redemption in him. And thirdly, we see that we receive an inheritance in him. This is all the way down towards the bottom of the text, verse 11, that we read today. It says we've received an inheritance in him. Each time it gives us a benefit, a blessing, which by the way is referring back to verse 3 that says we've had every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. We see that that blessing comes through who? Jesus. Okay, just making sure. All right? You're still with me. It comes through Jesus. So as Christians, it should not surprise anybody that we talk about Jesus a lot. Because Jesus is actually the centerpiece of our faith. He is who God used to bring about his plan, which is for our good and for his glory, as you're gonna see in this text, right? That he's gonna bring all things back together through him. In fact, I just want to take just a minute to talk about these three things that Jesus has provided for. The first one, adoption. As I said, we could spend a whole sermon just on this, or maybe a whole series just on this, but to think just for a minute. We were the rebels, we were enemies, we were those who had rejected God and resisted him. And he says in this text that God chose us. Not just that he chose us, but he chose us before the foundations of the world were laid. Let that sit on you for a second. What is he saying? He's saying, not just before you were born were you chosen to be adopted by God, but before the world was created, you were chosen to be adopted by God. Anybody's brain hurt? I mean, to me, we rob ourselves of worship by trying to minimize what the Bible teaches us about God. Because we want everything to fit in a nice, neat human package, but it doesn't. It doesn't. Because it tells us in this text that God, before the foundations of the world were laid, he chose. Us to be adopted. And we know that it goes on to say in this passage that Jesus was the one who made that adoption possible because of the price that he paid for that adoption, right? Now, I'm sure that some of you know people in your life who have been adopted or who have chosen to adopt. My wife and I had talked about at one point fostering and fostering to adoption, but God just kept giving us more of our own kids, and we were like, okay, I guess we're gonna have to hold off. We just kept having kids, and um and I know what causes it, okay? So um, but that said, God has been sovereign over of our life, and we have six kids, and so we're like, we're not ready to adopt right now. Um but that being said, I'm always in awe when I see stories of adoption and how much they paint a picture of how God has chosen us and adopted us. Um there's a young lady here in the church, uh, I won't say her name, but some of you probably know her. And she's been a part of our lives now for uh over a decade. And at some point, she's a single woman who's in our congregation who works in social work, and God has stirred her heart for adoption. And through the process of all that, she was like, Lord, do you want me to get married? Uh do you want me to continue to pursue that? Do you want me to adopt? Do you want to what do you want me to do? And she felt like the Lord was leading her to foster and then adopt. And so as a result of that, um, she just stepped out in faith and God began to give her foster kids. And uh eventually those those foster kids, one of them, became her adopted daughter. And my family has been so blessed to walk alongside of her. It's been such a gift to us because many days of the week she's at our home, and and I'm reminded of the beauty of love that chooses kids who are not your own biological kid to come into your world and to into your space that you sacrifice for, that you give to, that you serve and that you love and you care for out of just a heart of love for them. Not because you know you you you um you had them, but they they came as a choice. Um, there's another family in the church sitting in the room today. Again, I won't say their names. Uh, and and it wasn't that long ago, they adopted three children and brought them in to their home. And I'm in awe of how God is using them to build up these kids uh in their faith in God and and teaching them what the father's heart is for them. Now, one of the interesting things about adoption that I've found is that I've had many friends that have been adopted, and many of them wrestle to receive the love that has been given to them by the parents who choose them. And I was like, isn't that also a great parallel for us? In fact, in our life group on Wednesday night, we were talking about this very thing, and it is very interesting to watch how kids who have been adopted and been brought into a home that they uh you know may never have gotten if someone didn't step out of their comfort zone and sacrifice and bring them in. And to watch that kid battle out like, am I really loved? Am I really chosen? Do they really care about me? And and and a part of that is just this human nature, this difficulty in our hearts to receive love, right? But even more so, we do the same thing with God. God says, I'm adopting you, I'm choosing you, I love you, I want you, I want to be a father to you. And we're like, I don't know if you can love me, God. I don't know if you could really care that much about me. And I just want to encourage you today to listen to the words of the text again. That before you were born, before the world was made, God chose you and adopted you. If you were in Christ. Let that sink in to you today because it will truly change everything about you. J.I. Packer, I can hardly preach a sermon without coming up with something that J.I. Packer has said about this text that's so good and so helpful. But one of my favorite chapters in his entire book, called Knowing God, is on adoption. And if you happen to have a copy of that book, I encourage you just to go read the chapter this week on top of your Ephesian study, okay? Don't neglect that. Um, he says this you sum up the whole of the New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one's holy father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much they make of the thought of being God's child and having God as their father. Because at the very core of the Christian faith is a father, God, who chooses children. We are chosen and adopted. I've got to move on, okay? He also says in the text that we have redemption in him. He paid the price for adoption, adoption. Now, has anybody ever had your car impounded? So there's some nervous laughter in here. People are like, oh yeah, I haven't had that experience. Um, you know, if you've ever parked somewhere you weren't supposed to, which I know none of y'all ever do that, um, you may have had your car impounded, right? And what's interesting is that if you ever have that experience, which by the way, I have not because I'm too much of a rule follower, but, um, and I'm serious, uh, but the fact is that if you ever have to do that, uh you understand redemption. Maybe better than others. Because you have to go down to the station, wherever that is, to the place where they have towed your car to, and you have to walk into an office and you have to pay for your own vehicle that you own, you have to pay a fee to get it back. And in fact, in most of those offices, it says on the uh, you know, there on the door, it says redemption center, you know. Here's the redemption center, and that when you pay the amount of money and they give you the document, I had a friend that did this not long ago, they literally don't stick, they don't stamp paid in full, they stamp redeemed. And then they give you a piece of paper and you get your car back, right? Now, the reason I say that is because it helps us understand that when we are told we are redeemed in Christ, it is that someone, and we know who that someone is, Jesus Christ, has actually paid the price for our freedom. Paid the price for us to be possessed back to the one who actually owns us anyway. God. Okay? And Jesus is the one who paid that redemption, who paid the price for that adoption, who paid that part price for us to be restored to God in relationship. He how did he do it? Well, if you read the rest of that verse that I said that he says we're redeemed in him, it says what? We have redemption in him. This is verse 7, through his blood. If you want to know what it cost for you to be redeemed, for me to be redeemed, it costs Christ his life. Salvation is a gift, but it is a costly, costly, costly gift. Because it was Christ. It was his very blood that was shed to redeem us. But not only have we been redeemed and adopted, we've received an inheritance. It's interesting, he gets to the end of the text and he says, we've received an inheritance in him, in Christ. We've received it in him, predestined according to the purpose of the one who works out everything in agreement with the decision of his will. And he goes on to say that we have what? Received the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have received a down payment. It's basically saying, you know what? This salvation that you've received, it's legit, it's for real, and you are now sealed, you are marked, you are mine. And one of the best ways to know, like I ask have people ask this question, like, I'm not sure if I'm really a Christian. I'm not really sure I'm saved. That's maybe one of the ways they say it. Let me tell you how you know you are truly a Christ follower and saved. The Holy Spirit is inside of you. And when you get still and you get quiet and you say, God, speak to me. Am I yours? That Holy Spirit gives you a resounding yes. I'm not saying you don't have days where you doubt, because there's days that we as human beings we can get kind of lost in our world, we can get distracted, uh, we can start to think, I gotta earn it somehow, and I've not been doing so well, so maybe I lost it. But the Holy Spirit, in fact, Romans 8 even says it this way. It says that the Holy Spirit testifies to us, tells us that we are God's children. So the Holy Spirit is this seal. So I love the Ephesians 1 because it tells us that God chose us, he adopted us, Jesus by Christ paid the price for the adoption, and the Holy Spirit seals the adoption. You see it? So you get the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. You want to know why we're Trinitarian in our theology? Believing that there's Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Because we see it all in the Bible. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit all working in our salvation. And it's beautiful. It's pretty awesome to think about how God is at work in these ways in our life. That's mysterious in and of itself, isn't it? It's awesome, though. So not only is it Christ's provision that's at the center of our salvation and God's plan, it's his position. Well, where is Christ in all this? Well, it says in this verse here, um, verse 10 and B, which I already read to you guys, to bring everything together in Christ. He is the center, he is superior, he is supreme over all things. Um, listen, Jesus is not just a priority on your list. He's not just one piece of Christianity. He he embodies what it means to be a Christian. He embodies what it means to be um to be God's child and and to understand our faith, we have to look at Jesus. We have to understand what he has done, who he really is, how he lived his life, the sacrifice that he paid. So our lives as Christ followers revolve around the person and the work of Jesus. Okay? And I don't know if you know this or not, but all of the Bible points to him. All of the scripture points to Christ. Uh, for those of you that are parents out there, we say this fairly often. Um, but we remind you that there's a great resource called the Jesus Storybook Bible. It's out there. Uh, as it's a it's not the actual um verse by verse translation of the Bible. What it is is it's a compilation of stories from scripture that remind us that every Old Testament and New Testament passage points us to the person of Jesus and our need for Him. He's at the center. In fact, we know through the Bible that no one comes to God except through Jesus Christ. He's the way, the truth, and the life. And we don't have to apologize for that. We don't have to like compromise that. We can just say that's what the Bible says, John 14, 6. He's the way, he's the truth, he's the life, he's the gate, he's the door. And we enter to the kingdom of God through the person of Jesus. He is the center of all these things. Everything will ultimately be resolved, like we said earlier, in Christ. Now, not only is it about his provision or his position, but it's also his praise. Now, earlier I said if you should you should pay attention if there's things that are repeated. And in this passage, one of the other things that's repeated consistently besides in Christ, in him, in the Messiah, is this phrase to the praise of his glory. To the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory. He even starts this whole section off praise God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, I you you want to know why you exist? Do you want to know why you have a breath right now? Do you want to know why we are even alive? God says, I created everything what? For my glory? To worship me. And if you want to experience purpose and meaning in your life, you're gonna experience this as you actually worship the one who created you. As you worship the one who is worthy of it. When we are not worshiping him, we will feel disconnected from our purpose. Have you experienced that? When Christ is not the center of our lives, when we put other things at the center of our lives, and by the way, anything else can be the center. You can put things in the center, actually, really good things at the center. You can put your marriage at the center, you can put your children at the center, you can put your work at the center, and those things are not bad things, are they? But they're things that when they become ultimate will actually rob you of joy and peace and hope and life. Because everything other than God takes, only God gives. He's the only thing that you can bow down to that actually gives to you what you're actually looking for. And so in our lives, what I find time and time again is that I keep drifting away from that truth. I keep thinking somehow that there's something other than God that can actually provide what he's the only one who can deliver on. The only one who can actually meet that need. And so we want to praise God. When we are not worshiping him, we will find ourselves worshiping, which, just so in case we were all clear, like what does it mean to worship? It means to ascribe worth, to worship, like to actually ascribe worth and value, uh, to look for meaning for our own security, for our purpose in those things. And those things will not ever deliver. And God wants us to protect us from that. He wants to provide for us what we're looking for. I can't help but talk about this point and go to Colossians chapter 1. It's one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible. And Paul breaks out into a hymn in Colossians chapter 1. It's a verse that always has meant a lot to me, specifically when it comes to who is Jesus. And I want to just read it over us today to remind ourselves who is Christ, because it encapsulates all three of the things we've just said. He says, This He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by Him in heaven on earth, the visible and the invisible, were the thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile, because he is putting everything back together, reconcile everything to himself by making peace through his what? His blood shed on the cross. While things on earth or things in heaven. God has got this massive plan that he is unfolding, and it's in Christ. Christ is the centerpiece of all those things. And so we praise and we worship him today. That's why we sing songs to him. Now, all this said, God's plan, his plan that he's working out in Christ, it's inevitable, yet we have a part to play. It's inevitable that we yet we have a part to play. Have you noticed a couple of these words in here that make us feel a little uncomfortable? Predestined? Choosing before the foundations of the world. Anybody else get uncomfortable when you read those words? I don't know what that means. How is that possible? How is that a good thing? Can I just simply say real fast? The reason why we struggle with this is because we don't trust God's heart. The reason why I actually struggle with wanting God to predetermine the plan that's going to unfold is because I don't trust that it's going to be a good plan. So that's one indictment against my own heart. Maybe you're there. The other thing is God does not, again, fit into a category that I can actually just go, wow, that's easy. Boom. That is mind-blowing to really stop and think about the reality that God is in control. He has a sovereign plan. What does it mean that he predetermined? What does it mean that he predestined? What does it mean that he chose these things before they happened? Well, I'm not going to be able to preach a sermon up here to convince you of all the specific things of what that means this morning, okay? In fact, I think you should wrestle in the mystery of that. You're like, thanks. I think you should wrestle in the mystery of that. I think we should go to God and say, God, like, wow, like my brain can't even comprehend this. But here's what we do know the Bible tells us it's true. But you know what the Bible also says? The Bible also says that we are accountable. That we are responsible for the choices that we make, that we actually have a response to God, and that we are called to obey. So, why is this important? Well, because there are some people who believe not only is there not a plan, alright, but that we should actually make our own plan and that we're completely in control of our destiny. That we actually can make our plan, we can, you know, get this thing all ironed out, and basically we're in charge. Now, I I don't think it takes many of us uh long to just admit, if we're honest, that that plan doesn't work. There are a lot of things we experience on a daily basis that are outside of our control. Would you agree? Now I can remember um with this past week I had the opportunity to sit with a young couple in our home and we talked uh about our story of how Jada and I got to know each other and how we ultimately got married. Anyone had to do that lately? Um it's really fun. Uh I said had to do. It was fun to do, okay? Um be in trouble for that one later. Um, no. But seriously, it's so much fun to rethink through that whole experience. You know what's interesting about that is that when I look at my relationship with Jada and I think about the journey that I was on, I can honestly say with all integrity that God was sovereign over that process because it doesn't make sense how it all worked. It doesn't make sense how we ended up together, married, and now with six kids in our home. Um, yes, I can like sort of reason away, I did this, I did this. But when I when I really stopped, like I I consider God's sovereignty over, I made plans, but God determined my steps. Which is what Proverbs 16 tells us. And as a Christ follower, it is so incredibly uh so much of a gift to us to really stop and think, God, you are sovereign over my life. Others believe that there's this plan and it's unfolding, and so why try? Why try to do anything? Why tell anybody about Jesus? Because God's already chosen who he's gonna save. Why try to like just let things play out, let it go. Right? But the Bible, when we ask the question, is God in charge and are we accountable? The Bible says yes. The Bible says yes to both of those things. That we are accountable, but God is sovereign, that God is over all. Just two stories. I have to because they're helpful in the Bible. What I love is that in uh the Old Testament, some of you guys know the story of Joseph. Some of you may or may not. Uh if you don't know the story of Joseph, it's one of the more common verse uh stories in the Old Testament. And when you look at the story of Joseph, here's a guy who was basically um a brat, okay? Uh he had been given a lot of favor from his father, and his brothers did not like him for that. He was given a coat that really ticked him off because it was showing favoritism. So his brothers basically throw him in a pit. He's they sell him into slavery, he ends up getting shipped off to Egypt. I'm giving you the really fast version of it, but ultimately it doesn't go well for him. Uh, time and time again, even though he has some moments of like, oh hey, it's like this is good, and then it goes bad again. And he ends up in prison. But then eventually he actually ends up as second in command of all of Egypt, which is crazy. And God actually positions him in such a place that he ends up being the one who provides for God's people in a time of famine. His own family come to him. And you guys remember some of that. And one of the things that's powerful in Joseph's interaction with his brothers is as they're sort of coming to this place where Joseph is ready to break, and he does break, he finally has an emotional breakdown. He says, What you guys intended for evil, God used for good. The brothers had a plan, but God had a bigger plan. Acts 27. Interesting story. Paul's on a ship, and basically the storm is coming, and they're like, hey, Paul, you gotta help us out. Aren't you like connected to God or something? And Paul's like, listen, like, uh, if we do this, then we'll be saved. And then they all are like, well, let's get off. And he's like, if you do that, you're gonna die. In essence, what you find in that story is you find this sovereignty of God and free will of man at work in that story. Again, I don't have enough time to go into it in great depth, but if you go read Acts 27, you'll see, again, the tension that God is over all, and yet man has a responsibility. And we've experienced this in our personal lives, haven't we? You can't say, well, God's in charge, so I'm just gonna live however I want to live. You're gonna experience the pain and the heartache of those consequences of your decisions to live apart from him. So, in your life, my question to you is are you trusting in the sovereignty of God and are you submitting and surrendering and obeying what he's telling you to do? We need to do both. So, if God has a plan, what is his part? Well, very simply, I just want to say this to you guys this morning. This is gonna sound very foundational. God's part of the plan, his whole massive plan for human history is God is the creator and the recreator. God is the creator and God is the recreator. God is the creator in that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, right? He spoke it into existence. He said, I'm going to create a world and a place where there are birds and there are animals and there are fish and there are all these different things that creation. Has to it that we look around today and sometimes just forget like these are miracles. God created everything. In fact, from the passage in Colossians I just read, God created all things. He created them, uh they were created by him and they were created for him. Okay? But the second thing is God doesn't just create things, but he is recreating things. He is recreating things, he's making all things, he's new, he's bringing them back, he's restoring all things to the original design. Only He can fix what has been broken in our rebellion. We can't fix it. Lots of us try. Lots of us try to fix what's broken. Some of it's just simply through trying to make life easier, more comfortable, uh, pursuing things that we hope will give us purpose or meaning or significance, but none of those things can ultimately do that. Christ has done that for us in the cross that we now receive. Okay? What is stunning in this passage is not only that God is recreating the world and putting it back together like it's supposed to be, but he actually takes pleasure in it. Did you know that? Some people have this view of God that God is like this mean, angry being that is just waiting to hurt us, that wants to just mess us up, wants us to be miserable. Did you read Ephesians 1? He delights in it. It's in his love that he chose us and adopted us and predestined us. It is by his grace, he sees you as an object of his love. He cares about you. He cares about you so deeply. And so in our lives, if you live as if God is this mean, angry man upstairs that wants to strike you down, your heart will never be stirred to fully be free and to obey him and to enjoy all the things that he offers to you. But when you begin to understand that he is a loving father, who invites you into his presence, who actually wants to help you and wants to guide you and wants to give you good gifts, then you begin to understand, man, wow, life is an amazing grace journey. Experiencing more and more and more of the goodness of God in all things. Does that mean that you're still gonna that you're gonna avoid all suffering? No. But in it, we know we have a father. I mentioned this earlier about the adoption issue. You know, if um if someone was in a crowd and the president of the United States was speaking, and somebody in the crowd just started running towards the president, what do you think is gonna happen? You're gonna get shot. Take it down, something's gonna happen, right? Serious, you don't do that. What if the president of the United States was speaking and their child ran to them? What do you think would happen? They just let them run up to them. Because it's a child, it's their child. Listen, we can we can come to God because we're his children. We have this amazing gift of being his child, of being able to come to him. And from that place, from that place of understanding that he loves, what's our part? I'm gonna close with this. Our part in this journey, you're gonna like this, okay? Surrender. I was joking. That's a lot easier said than done. Surrender. We must come to a place where we end our attempt to be God of our life. We must come to a place where we submit ourselves to God. We must come to a place by faith that we trust God. We entrust ourselves to Him, that we realize He will fulfill His purpose, and we will find purpose there. And we will also naturally overflow with praise for God. Surrender. I was driving in this morning and I was just having a conversation with God in my head. And I was asking God, why is it that I fight so hard against surrender? Why is it that I fight to submit myself to Him? And it goes back to what I said a little bit earlier. I think God put his finger on the fact that you don't actually trust that I'm good. You don't actually trust me, Nick, that I am a good father who loves you more deeply than you know. And I would say to you this morning that some of you in this room, the reason you won't submit to God, the reason you won't surrender to him is because you're not convinced he's actually that good. And I'm praying that by the Spirit, I mean, I literally, it broke me this morning in a good way to say, Lord, like, help me to believe that you're good. Because when I believe that, everything is submitted and surrendered to you because I can trust you. If you're in Christ today, let's praise him for choosing to adopt us, redeem us, and seal us before we were even born. If you're in Christ today, let's join God's work to let the world know how the amazing plan of God is unfolding and that God is bringing all things back together in Christ. Sometimes we talk about evangelism in very mechanical ways. Like, what if we just saw people as potential God's children? Potential children of God, that we just get to share with them, like, God loves you, and he wants to restore a relationship with you. He wants you to be adopted. If you're not in Christ today, this is an opportunity before you to surrender your life to Him, to receive the gift of adoption and redemption that Jesus Christ paid for with his blood. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for the beauty of what you're doing, that you have a plan, that that plan is inevitable, and that you invite us to participate in it. God, thank you that Jesus, you didn't just make a promise that you were going to send your son to fix the problem. You sent him, you delivered on your promise. And we today, we just want to submit our hearts to you. Um we know, God, we know, God, that we are stubborn, that we resist you. And we know that a lot of that is rooted in our unbelief that you truly are. Who this text declares that you are a good, loving Father. So I pray this morning that even this place, in a very real way, that your spirit would just move to remind us who you are, and that we can trust you in all things, no matter what. That we can submit and surrender to you. We can submit our money, our time, our energy, our agendas, our dreams. We can submit them to you and we can trust that God, you're gonna lead us to the best life we can experience. Ultimately, that you're gonna lead us to participate in this grand plan to rescue us. God, thank you so much for that today, and I praise your name. Amen. Um, as we close our time, we invite you to sing with us. We invite you to pray, we invite you just to respond. Um, every single person in this room, you matter to God. You matter to God. Some of you just need to hear that today. You matter to God. The Father loves you. He is calling you to follow him, he's calling you to surrender to him. And so, wherever you are in your journey, whether you're like, I'm running the other way right now, or whether you feel like, man, I'm I'm just trying to take the next step. Wherever you are, that you would just surrender your life to God. You'd surrender to follow his agenda, his will, his way. Ultimately, receive his grace. Receive his goodness this morning by faith. Receive it. Receive the fact that he loves you. No matter how you might feel, receive the truth this morning. Uh, one of the ways that we can remind ourselves of that is through communion. Communion is an act of a symbolic cracker and juice that we take as Jesus did with his disciples, where he said, This is my body broken, this is my blood shed. He is saying that I purchased your redemption through that act. And as we reflect on that this morning, may that just encourage you. Like maybe you feel like God doesn't love me, he doesn't care about me. Man, that's a lie from the pit of hell. Jesus Christ died for you. And you don't have to earn his love, you just have to receive it by faith. Okay? And if you need prayer this morning for any reason, we'll be back at the back of the room. Feel free to jump in and we'll pray and we'll encourage you if that's something you need. But if not, just just let's just stop and reflect on who God is and what he's done, and let's thank him. Let's praise him, like this text says.