Good Works Are Foreordained by the Father

Ephesians 2:10 and the Theme of Good Works Foreordained by God

Please turn your Bible to Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians two can be found on, well actually I'm not sure which page it can be found on, but it's there. We'll be reading verses one through 10, but our preaching text today is simply on the final half verse of this paragraph, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

So let me give you a brief overview of where we've been and where we're going here. So this series on motivations for good works, we started with Titus 2 .14 which speaks of, which speaks of God's purpose for us being good works.

And then we went to 2 Corinthians 9 .8, which speaks of God giving abundant grace in order to do good works. They were going to look at how the Lord has foreordained good works for his people. And so today begins a small sub-series of this where we're going to go through each person of the Trinity to see how they relate to good works.

So we're going to look at the Father today, next week at the Son, next week after that the Spirit. And there will be more messages after that, but this is the current trajectory so you can anticipate where we are going.

When you have that, go ahead and stand and we will read Ephesians 2, one through 10. And you were dead in the trespasses and sin in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that you would equip us for good works. We pray that you would encourage us toward good works. We pray that this passage that you have given for the encouragement of the saints, for correction, for reproof, for training in righteousness, we pray that even this passage would encourage us in the way that we ought to go, and that we would be filled with a great zeal to follow your commands, in Jesus' name, amen.

Saved by Grace, Created for Good Works

So you may be fairly familiar with the two verses that come before this one. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

This is one of my favorite verses. This is probably the first verse that I memorized as a child. I remember there were a bunch of verses that I memorized, particularly for some competition, this Bible memory league I was in, and I believe this was even the first passage that I memorized, Ephesians 2, eight, and nine.

But the thought is finished, really, with the verse that comes after. For we are His workmanship, creating Christ Jesus for good works. So he starts off by saying that you are not saved by good works, rather, you are saved for good works.

It is not your good works that justify you, yet good works are not absent from the picture, rather, God has justified you, he has given you the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ in order that you would be free to do good works.

And part of the point that is going on here, and the way that this is addressed at this particular time in this way, is to say that God has a plan. Now, if you've studied Ephesians before, you'll know that the previous chapter says a lot about God's plan, a lot about his predestining, and how he has accomplished everything for his purpose.

It uses the word predestined multiple times in the previous passage to show that God had a plan from all of eternity to save a particular people for himself. Now, what's going to happen after this paragraph in Ephesians 2 is that he is going to speak of the mystery of Christ.

The mystery of Christ is that truth that was hidden for a long time, but now in the New Testament is revealed that God intended to build a people for himself with not just Jews, but Jews and Gentiles united together to be a single body, to be a single temple.

God has a plan. And so to reemphasize, or to emphasize this plan, he speaks of God having prepared, God having prepared good works beforehand for us that we should walk in them. Most people, when they think about salvation, when they think about good works, they don't imagine God having much of a plan.

They imagine God having a purpose, but not a plan. Okay, he has this purpose, like we talked about two sermons ago, that we would do good works, but there's not necessarily a plan for those good works.

It's up to us to figure it out in the meanwhile. But the truth of this passage is, not only has God planned from all eternity past our salvation, our eventual glorification, but he has planned even the good works that we would do in the meanwhile.

This is all part of his plan. So it speaks here of him having created us in Jesus Christ for good works. Next week, we're going to look at the first half of this verse, that we are his workmanship, creating Christ Jesus for good works.

But just to define good works again, good works are sincere obedience to the law of God. It's not just those things that God calls some men to, particular acts of charity, all that is included, but it's also things that God calls every man to, resistant temptation, dealing with trials without complaining, et cetera.

It is all kinds of obedience to God's law that is included under the heading of good works. It says, which God prepared, speaking of God, he speaks of the Father. You see that this is the same one who created us in Christ Jesus, so this is not the same person of the Trinity as Jesus Christ, but in speaking of God here, he's speaking of the Father.

Now, all the works of the Father, Son, and Spirit are inseparable, none of them is truly independent in anything that they do, because they are all one. So for example, while it may speak of one creating in a particular way, we know that all three persons of the Trinity created.

You can find verses where it speaks of every person of the Trinity creating. When it speaks of the Father raising Jesus from the dead, it does not just say that, it also says in John 2 that Jesus Christ raised himself from the dead.

Also says in Romans 8 that the Spirit raised him from the dead. And so you see that these works of God are inseparable. However, there are some actions, while not to separate them from the other persons of the Trinity, are particularly ascribed to persons as being more proper to them in some sense.

And one of those is this nature of election, this nature of a planning out of all things, and that is attributed particularly to the Father, that he is the one who prepares these things beforehand. He has prepared them, he has ordained them, as you see the title of this message speaks of works being foreordained.

As the word that King James uses here, speaks of these works being ordained or otherwise appointed. He has decided beforehand, before the world ever existed, what it was that would take place. And that he has decided that, not just so that that could be there as some kind of potential, but indeed that we should walk in them, that we should walk in those good works.

Foreordination, Adoption, and the Means God Ordains

So let us consider this foreordination as a whole. This includes, most certainly, our conversion. It is said in the previous passage, sorry, in the previous chapter, said in verse 11, excuse me, in verse five, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

So it was his will to predestine us for adoption, to be adopted as children of God in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only Son of God, and he is the only begotten Son of God, but in him we may also be sons.

These truths that we're speaking about today are not things that are true of the whole world, they're things that are true particularly of believers. If you were here today, and you have not trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, then these promises that are being given are not true for you, or at least they are not necessarily true for you.

If it is the Lord's plan that you should believe, if you turn to him in repentance from your sins, you trust in the salvation of Jesus Christ, it is not something that comes by your own hands, by your own works, but rather by his grace, and you believe that in faith, these are things that are true for you.

And so I hope today that if there's anyone here who is not trusted in Jesus Christ, that these would be true for you, but as of now you have no reason to have confidence in that apart from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But he has brought about our conversion for those who have believed, and it speaks of that in terms of adoption, placing us in Jesus Christ that we might also be sons of God. Now in addition to our conversion, that initial part of the Christian journey, he has also predestined the end.

In fact, when a lot of people think about the term predestination, they hear that word destination, right, they think primarily of the end. In fact, if you stop there and you think a second about predestining us for adoption, most people usually don't think that way about predestination, do they?

Because that's talking about the beginning of the journey. They usually think about God only predestining the end of the journey. In fact, that is a very common notion of predestination, a common notion that people have even in the world of things like destiny and fate, that is the end particularly that is planned, not necessarily the middle.

If you consider various sci-fi books or movies that you may have seen that talk about time travel, one of the philosophical things they often try to wrestle with in these is if you were to go back in the past and change a bunch of things before, would it be possible to change the present?

Or if you were to do a bunch of things in the present, knowing the future, would it be possible to change the future? A lot of times, the conclusion of these works of fiction is no, it would just be impossible.

It's very much like the pagan fates of Greek mythology where one is weaving the thread together, the other is considering its length, and the other is chopping it off. And what's going on in the middle?

The length of life is set, the beginning and end are set, but what goes on in the middle is a little more variable. This is how many people think about God's predestination is it's something that is primarily about the end, maybe a little less so about the beginning, but then not at all about the middle.

So what's the problem with that? Well, God has not just predestined the ends, he has also predestined the means, just like it says in Romans 8 that those whom he elected, he also justified. Those whom he justified, he also glorified.

He has predestined all the parts in between. So when people ask, could you change, like if you were to, has God so fixed the future that it doesn't matter what you do, you're still going to heaven or you're still going to hell, something like that?

What's the problem with that question? The problem with that question isn't the idea that God knows the future or has decided the future. The problem with that question is the assumption that he hasn't decided the present, right?

It is that all the present going on, all our good works in the middle, all our actions in the middle are all some kind of variable thing. It's something that aligns much more with the pagan notion of faith than with the Christian idea of God's providence, of God's ordination, God's election, which is something that is where he is deciding not just the end, but also the means.

He has decided that the one who will be saved, ultimately, in the resurrection is the one who is also sanctified. And so these things are not so divorced that that's even a sensible question of does it not matter what you do?

You could just live however and then the end is still that way. Oftentimes, this is called hyper-Calvinism, if you've ever heard that term before. A lot of times people think about hyper-Calvinism as extreme Calvinism, because that's what the title kind of sounds like, right?

It's extreme Calvinism. Well, that's where you believe God is predestining things even more. No, it's actually where you believe God is predestining things even less. You believe he's predestining the end, but not the means, right?

And the means are all variable. So it's actually sub-Calvinism in a lot of ways, because God is predestining less. And so what kind of thoughts go on in hyper-Calvinism? Well, there could be despair, where, well, my fate's already decided.

There's nothing I can do about it, so why bother even trying? I will just despair. Or it could be license, where someone says, you know, I'm going to heaven. There's nothing that can change about that, and so I don't have to worry about what I do in this life.

And so you live however you want, right? That's another kind of hyper-Calvinism. Or many of you may have heard of the hyper-Calvinism that says there's no point in evangelizing, because God has already decided who will be saved, who goes to heaven.

All these things divorce the means from the end and act as though God is just in control of the future, but not in control of the present. He has decided the ends, but not the means. And so God has not just decided the end.

He has also decided the beginning. He has also decided the means. He has decided all things, all things. Consider what it says in verse 11 of chapter one. 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.

He works all things according to the counsel of his will. All things. That includes even matters that we would call chance. There's really no such thing as chance. A lot of people imagine that there are things that God cares about that he's really in control of, and then the rest he kind of just leaves to go on on its own.

Proverbs 16, 33 says the lot is cast in the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. So even casting lots, something that is decided by the Lord. This is how extensive his providence is. Now if you consider what that means, that there's no chance.

If you've ever thought about how to generate a random number, and I know a lot of you have because we're in a place that is full of computer scientists. If you were to generate a random number, one way you could do it is you could throw a tin-sided die.

If you wanted a number between zero and nine, let's say you throw a tin-sided die. That will show up a certain way. And now what makes that random? It's not that it's really random. Physics is fixed.

The way that you threw it was a certain way. If someone understands physics well enough and is watching their hand very carefully and can calculate everything, the result of the die is not going to be a surprise to them.

It's only a surprise because we don't understand physics that well. We're not capable of doing those calculations or observing someone's hand that carefully. The computer scientist, when he tries to make a random number, he looks at the clock on the computer and then multiplies that by a big number.

And then if he just wanted a number between zero and nine, he would just look at the last digit of whatever number was created. And that would be unpredictable enough because of our limitations and our capacities, but it's not as though the clock isn't working exactly as it should.

It's not as though math isn't working exactly as it should. God would understand those things. And so you can appeal to things that are less understood, like, you know, radioactive particles and things like that.

People have tried coming up with random number generators in different ways, but none of these things are truly random. They're just things we understand less. What kind of thing does God not understand?

In fact, if you imagine, would it even be possible for God to create such a thing as chance? A lot of people imagine for things like this that we would be saying that God has chosen not to create chance.

I don't even believe it would be possible for God to create something as chance. What does that even mean, for God to create something that operates differently than he designed it to work? That it would be like some kind of second creative force in the universe.

But there is no such thing. There is God. He has created everything. It all works according to his design. Nothing is outside of his design. All things work according to his purpose. Now, this does not preclude the idea of there being means that are very real.

God is not accomplishing everything directly. There are some things that he accomplishes indirectly. So, consider gravity, right? Gravity is a real force. God has created physics. When something falls from a tree, when a piece of fruit falls from a tree, that's not God putting his fingers into creation, pushing it all down, right?

He is the first cause of all things because he created gravity. But second causes, which is the technical term for these other things that are happening immediately, like gravity, that is a direct cause that is moving the fruit to the ground, right?

Same thing with human will. Human will is not something that God is forcing and making to do anything. Now, he created human wills. They operate according to his design. However, they are still very real things.

So, God has ordained both the means and the end. And he has not done this all directly, but some of it he has accomplished indirectly. These are his purposes. Now, if this is the case, that he accomplishes all things, that he works all things according to the counsel of his will, as it says in Ephesians 1 .11, what does that say for good works?

Certainly, good works would fall into that category of the things that God is sovereign over. He has ordained even our very steps. It says in Psalm 139 .16, Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

So, before you were even born, God decided every single step. It talks about this in analogy of a book, as though he were writing down, authoring everything that would come to pass. He knows your every step.

Proverbs 16 .9, The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. And so, this is extensive. God has decided all things that will come to pass. That includes the things that you will do, and for his people, that includes their good works.

Now, consider how God has prepared you and set you up for those works that you would do, in things simply as simple as where you were born, where and when you were born. Even the fact that you were born at all, did you know that the number of embryos that actually implant in the wall of the uterus is only 30

This isn't even counting what most people are talking about when they speak of miscarriages, right? Only 30 even make it to the point of being implanted in the wall of the uterus. The fact that you were born at all is something that is not a given.

It's a minority circumstance, but the Lord has decided that you would be one of those who made it all the way to birth. Now, on top of that, consider the home that he placed you in. He placed you in a particular home.

If you grew up in a Christian home, that is a special blessing of the Lord. If he placed you in a different home, a pagan home, he still placed you in circumstances where you would end up here today and be exposed to the light of the gospel.

These are things that are special blessings from the Lord, and he has prepared you in that way even by allowing you to be born, permitting you to be born, by placing you in the particular home that you were placed in.

Consider the time that you were born in. You were born to live here in the 21st century. Most people throughout history were not. They were born at different times. He has not chosen you to place you early during the time of David.

He has chosen not to place you in the Middle Ages. He has chosen to place you right here, right now. And he has also decided the place that you would be born. I assume, well, most of us here, not born in, I can pick any land, right?

Most of us here, not born in Uruguay. Most of us here, not born in, pick any land, right? But born particularly where you were born. That shapes you in a very particular way. The time and place and home and everything that you were in has shaped you in a very particular way.

And that is all by the Lord's hand. And so when God, having prepared you for all things, and then placing you into those things, accomplishes that, you should be thinking about God's purposes. You know, often the Lord tests us.

In fact, every time he places you in a trial, according to his word, he is testing you. Consider how this happened with Abraham, right? God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Isaac. He tested Israel, having them go through the wilderness.

He tested Hezekiah by sending the Babylonian envoys. So you have all these times where there are temptations in front of people that are testing them, and trials in front of people that are testing them.

And all of those are part of God's purpose. A lot of them think as evil things that are coming from the enemy, and maybe in some sense they are evil. They may be fraught with moral evils. They may have particular calamities about them.

Yet, James 1 .17, speaking of trials that we encounter, says, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

God does not change. He is not bad in the bad times and then good in the good times. He is still good even in the bad times. Even trials are coming from His hand for His purpose. And so you should encounter trials aware of that.

Consider also the opportunities that you may have. This is especially the case with opportunities to proclaim the gospel, to tell others about the gospel, to advance the kingdom of God. For example, you look in the Bible and you see an ax.

Philip encountered the Ethiopian eunuch, and it was clearly by God's providence that those two would be around each other when the Ethiopian eunuch is reading from Isaiah so that Philip is able to explain Isaiah to the Ethiopian eunuch.

And keep in mind that this is happening at a point in time where people used to read out loud. People don't read aloud today, right? If they had crossed during the 21st century, they wouldn't have even noticed each other.

But the Ethiopian eunuch, reading out loud, Philip heard him and came over to him. And so your situations, opportunities you have to share the gospel are things that happen by the hand of God. And trials that you are placed in are for particular purposes that you might not even see yet.

Consider Joseph. He goes off into slavery. It's a pretty difficult circumstance, a hard providence. But ultimately, what is it for? It's to save the people from hunger. It's to save them from the famine that he would give them the bread of life, ultimately foreshadowing Jesus Christ.

Christ's sufferings themselves being something that save us. Consider ones throughout history. John Bunyan was put in prison for preaching the gospel. Oh, basically without a license. And what did he use that time to do that he probably wouldn't have otherwise done?

He wrote Pilgrim's Progress. And that's something that many of us enjoy still today. So trials even are things that God is using for his purposes. Now, when you face a trial, are you primarily thinking, how can I avoid this?

And when you face opportunities, are you thinking, well, how can I lay low as possible and minimize risk? Now, if these are the kinds of thoughts you're thinking, you're thinking very survival mindset about the thought, about your situation.

And you are not thinking primarily in light of God's sovereignty, in light of what he is accomplishing, having foreordained works beforehand. If you were thinking that this trial is from the Lord, this opportunity is from the Lord, you would have more of a success mindset about how can I face this trial successfully?

How can I face this temptation successfully? How can I face this opportunity successfully? Knowing that every single one of them, every single one of them comes from the Lord. Think about what this means for your calling, right?

You are, a lot of people look with rose-colored glasses at other times and places and circumstances, right? They say, oh, it'd be nice if I grew up in the Old Testament then I'd see the hand of God work in these various ways or wouldn't it be great if I were part of the early church?

Like, that was a real time of belonging. You know, people call themselves old souls as though they really belong in a different time and God was unwise in placing them. Where he's placed them. People imagine that, you know, I was made for something different.

I wasn't made for these circumstances that I'm in. A different providence would have been better for me. No, every single providence that you are in is tailor-made for you, like a jacket, tailor-made for you.

The salvation that you receive is the exact same salvation everyone else gets. You know, the justification in eternal life, right? It's the same thing, 11th hour worker, right? Exact same thing. But the good works that God has in store for you are your individual blessing from the Lord that no one else can lay claim to.

It is something that is a particular gift.

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The works that God has prepared beforehand. Eternal life, all the same. But the works that God has prepared beforehand, a particular calling for you. Consider Acts 17, 26.

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And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. God has decided all these things. He has decided where and when you would be born, and he has decided the good works that are fit just for you.

Why God’s Foreordination Does Not Cancel Human Responsibility

Now, a question often comes up at this point, which is, Well, if God has decided all these things, then why ought I to bother? Now, that is pretty much the same kind of thinking that I mentioned earlier, that kind of hyper-Calvinism that divorces means from ends.

But let me give you a couple of other things. You know, if you're asking yourself, well, how can he hold me at fault? If he's already decided what good works I would do, how can he hold me at fault for the good works that I don't do?

Two things that throw away that thinking. First of all, Scripture commands you. Okay, Scripture commands you toward good works, says devote yourself to good works. Secondly, that is not how you live life any other way.

Okay, you don't say, Well, he's already decided whether or not I will be fed, so why bother cooking? You know, he has decided whether or not I'll have a job, so why bother applying? Right, you don't do this about other things, but for some reason, people get all philosophical and spiritual about God's, about, they get all philosophical and kind of sink themselves with these thoughts in a way that excuse them when it comes to obeying the Lord.

And these are, yeah, in many ways, very, very sinful way of going about some of these deeper things that you could be thinking. A .W. Pink said, It is only by taking heed to this vital principle, that we are responsible to use the means of God's appointing, that we shall be enabled to preserve the balance of truth and be saved from a paralyzing fatalism.

All right, so how do you get saved from the fatalist idea that it's all been decided, there's no point in me doing anything? It's recognizing that you are responsible to make use of the means, you are responsible to obey.

And God has determined not just the end, he's determined the means as well, and he's calling you to walk in those means. Now, you know, this is very much like someone who would get in a car and get overwhelmed and decide not to drive the car because they don't understand how the engine works, they don't understand how the cylinders work, they don't understand how the pistons work, they don't understand how the exhaust works, etc., etc.

Like, how can any of this work? And so they don't drive the car. The fact that you don't understand it is not sufficient reason to not drive the car, right? The fact that you don't understand how God's sovereignty works, if there are questions still in your mind, these are not excuses to disobey what God has very clearly commanded.

Reading Providence with Humility and Discernment

Now, there's a, perhaps a better, more honest version of that question that could be asked, that is, are there good works that God has prepared beforehand that we would not walk in? Okay, so, in other words, this is saying God prepared works beforehand that we should walk in them, but is there the option that he has prepared them beforehand and then we wouldn't walk in them?

Like, can you be disobedient to this providence? Is that really a thing? The answer is both yes and no, okay? So, yes, God has decided all things, okay? So he has decided what works that we would walk in, okay?

Yet, at the same time, there is, in a very real sense, that you can be disobedient to the circumstances that God has placed you in, okay? And this is true when you consider God's character, but let me give you a couple of examples.

So, first of all, well, let me explain God's character. So God's character is such that he would never lie, he would never do what is unjust. There are some things that are absolutely necessary to him.

There are other things that he does freely, right? So, for example, when Elisha told Joash to strike the arrows on the ground and he only did it three times and not five or six, and Elisha says, if you had struck five or six times, then the Syrians would have been defeated.

There is a real idea that if he had done it these additional times, this other thing would have taken place. There was a real opportunity that was not taken. You can consider also 1 Samuel 15. 1 Samuel 15, God says two things that sound very contradictory.

He says that he has regretted making Saul king. In other words, there is an opportunity that Saul had that Saul used very poorly, but later on it says that God is not a man that he should regret. Now, how can it say that God regrets and that he doesn't regret?

Well, in a sense, this is all part of his plan, and yet he's still using the language of disgret, describes that opportunity that is something that is not necessary in the same way. So consider this. God will always fulfill his promises.

There's never going to be time he will not fulfill his promises. In fact, we can say in some sense that God could not do otherwise than not fulfill his promise because he is simply truthful and faithful, yet making promises is something that he does freely.

He doesn't have to make every promise he makes. He makes some promises and then not others. Consider his law. He could not say, okay, today it's all right to lie and to murder. These are things that come from his very character.

He is truth itself. He can't say that it's not okay to lie, but when it comes to other matters of his law, things known as positive law that he has to declare for them to be the case, like the tree in the garden, it wouldn't be okay in any circumstance for Adam to lie.

God would not have ever said, Adam, you can now lie because that's part of his character, and yet God is free to say, this tree of the garden you cannot eat and this tree you can, and he could have reversed those trees if he had so desired.

This is his freedom to do, and God will always be just, but it is his freedom to choose who he'll be merciful and who he will not be merciful to. And this, if you think about this further, you realize, you know, Christians would often get this accusation that this biblical view of God's sovereignty is making man a robot because it's fixed man and what he will do, and there's no freedom for man.

Everything is just fixed and determined, but if you consider what we are saying about God, what are they actually doing? It's not us who are calling man a robot. It is them calling God a robot because they would make any of these, all things that God does equally necessary.

They would describe every aspect of his sovereignty equally necessary. When not all are equally necessary, he is free to do as he pleases, right? Like I said, he would never lie. That is not something he can do, and yet he can choose which tree of the garden should be forbidden.

Those who would say that this view of sovereignty makes man a robot can only do that because they're already operating with the assumption that God is a robot, right? They're already walking with the assumption that all of God's actions are equally necessary and give him no freedom to have some actions that are coming from his nature in a more certain way than others which are secondary where he has freedom.

So that is part of what's going on there. Anyway, the takeaway from that for you is that opportunities certainly can be lost just as Joash didn't strike the arrows more times as he should have, just as Saul did not take his opportunity as king.

As he ought.

And so you, in facing the situations that God places you in, your trials, your circumstances, your opportunities, do not think that it doesn't matter how you treat them because God will take the opportunities away.