Chosen in Love

Well, good morning, beloved. If you'd be so gracious to stand with me for the reading of God's word. From Ephesians chapter one, verse one through 14. Hear ye this morning the word of the Lord. From Ephesians one, verse one.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Chosen in Christ Before the Foundation of the World

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, that which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

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.

In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory, you may be seated.

Let me ask the Lord's blessing upon the reading and preaching of his word. Father, in Jesus' mighty name, we do approach you this morning thankful that you've given us the freedom to be here today, to know you, to worship you, to give unto you that which is rightly and duly belonging to you.

Lord, we do think of the brothers and sisters around the world today in places where there is conflict, places like in Ukraine and Syria and Ethiopia and others. Lord, we pray, God, that you, God, would be not forgetting of your people, that you would remember them, remember their cries, hear from heaven, that you would intercede in the lives of our brothers and sisters across the world who are suffering persecution.

And Lord, we know that you are working all things together for good, and you have blessed us immensely in the beloved through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory both now and forevermore, amen. Well, church, today's message is called Chosen in Love, and our main text will be Ephesians 1, verses three to six.

If you have an insert, you should have received an insert in your bulletin today, you can follow along in the teaching, you can fill in the blanks as we go along with today's preaching and teaching. But first, I want to emphasize to you something that is of immense good news for all of you here today, and it's this in verse three.

We see that Paul begins his letter after his greeting to the church in Ephesus with these blessed words saying, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the beloved, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

What I want you to know today is that the narrative that we find here in Ephesians 1, verse three, verse three to 14 is the past, the present, and the future of God's overarching redemptive plan for humanity.

Every Spiritual Blessing in the Heavenly Places

We see this, namely, in his plan to unite all things under his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to know this morning the triune God is the fount of every spiritual blessing for his people. Notice again what it says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He is, indeed, the blessed God. Now, what makes God so blessed? Think about what that word means for a moment, blessed. Blessed can be translated in a couple different ways, but one of the connotations for the word blessed is happy.

There are some translations that I've seen, maybe not the best translations, but some translations I've seen have actually translated verses like these. Instead of saying the blessed God, it says the happy God.

That God is blessed, he's the one who has true happiness, he's the fount of all happiness, of all joy, of all blessing. It all comes from him, the triune and true God. He's the source of every blessing unto his people.

And the blessings that we are talking about are the blessings of heaven. The blessing of heavens are not merely for the individual, but it is, indeed, for us. If you're following along in the insert, God has blessed the church.

He has blessed the church. Why don't you write that in there? God has blessed the church in whom? In whom has God blessed the church in? But the Lord Jesus Christ. God has blessed the church in Christ.

In Christ, he has blessed us, meaning the collective, redemptive, redeemed church through all the ages. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus who has blessed us, that's the church, in Christ with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places.

Now, what is it that God has blessed his people with? Every spiritual blessing. Every spiritual blessing. Consider all the blessings that can belong to a particular people. Think of the blessings that belong to us here in this room today, just by the fact that we live in this great nation.

There's no bombs bursting overhead. There's no government or persecutor that is shutting our doors, though it has happened and has happened in the neighboring country of Canada, of which I was a former resident of.

But today, there's no one knocking our doors down to stop us from meeting. There's no conflict or war that is not permitting us to meet this morning. We're blessed. We're truly blessed. But our blessings that we are talking about in Ephesians 1 goes far beyond the blessing that can belong to any particular race or collective people.

Rather, it is a spiritual blessing, a spiritual blessing that is mine and yours in Christ. So you may be asking yourself, what is a spiritual blessing? Again, first of all, blessing can be understood as meaning having favor, having favor, protection, or happiness.

Let me ask you this morning, church, are you favored? Are you happy? Are you filled with a joy inexpressible? What I want you to know this morning is this. Being blessed goes beyond the idea of just being happy.

Some of you today may be in this house of worship, and you may not be happy, and that's okay. I want you to know that God is more interested in your joy than he is in your happiness. He's more interested in having given you favor than how you may feel in a particular space and time even here today.

Here's something I want you to know too is that happiness is cheap. Happiness is cheap. Joy, however, the joy that the Lord gives is of much value. Why do I say happiness is cheap? Well, let me give you a scenario.

Let's say you go to Walmart, and you come out of the store, and you see 20 bucks on the ground. You pick it up, you're pretty happy, aren't you? You get to your car, someone's rear-ended you. You're not so happy anymore, aren't you?

That means that happiness can be fleeting. Here one minute, gone the next. But you know what can be a constant in your life is the spiritual blessing of joy. Because joy is not conditional. I like to say that happiness is external.

Things outside of you can determine your happiness. But joy is something that is internal that the Lord grants. And when the Lord grants you a joy, whether you find money or whether you find your car wrecked, you can have a joy that is inexpressible, a joy that no man can take away from you.

Happiness is here one minute, gone the next, but joy can be a constant in your life, and it is indeed one of the spiritual blessings of heaven that he grants us in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God has blessed the church in Christ with every spiritual blessing. And one of those blessings, again, is the blessing of joy. Because it is a joy to know the Savior. It is a joy knowing that our sins have been cleansed, have been washed, and we've been made new through Jesus.

What a joy it is ours to know him, to be in him, to be found in fellowship with the true and living God. This joy is yours forever, this favor, this protection. You see, people try to find blessings by many different means and idols.

Yet for the Christian, our blessing has a spiritual source, and that is the blessed one himself, even God the Father. God is the blessed one, and he's also the blesser of his people. He's the blessed one who has all favor, happiness, joy, protection, and he is the blesser of his people, the church, who is the recipient of the spiritual blessings and gives through his agent of blessing, which is Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Now, Christ is the agent of God's blessing, but there's a motive to God's blessing of the church, and it's love. I want you to know this morning that you are loved. God has found a fit in his eternal plan of redemption, and through the great love of which he has for us, to find favor and happiness and blessing and joy in you through Jesus Christ, who is forever blessed.

Election, Predestination, and Adoption in Love

Notice what it says in verse four. Even as he chose us in him, he, God the Father, chose us, the us being the church, but the church being made individually of Christians, those who have been called out of darkness into his marvelous light.

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Before the world even was, God had you in mind. God knew you. God loved you. In love, he chose us to have every spiritual blessing in Christ, every spiritual blessing.

It says, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, before him. If you're following along in today's teaching, I also want to emphasize that our blessings are in the heavenly places in the second part of today's teaching.

Our blessings are in the heavenly places, meaning that our true possession is not below, but above. I want you to write that in there. It's above where Christ is. If you have an opportunity, please turn to Colossians chapter three.

As many individuals are oftentimes confused by what it is that the apostle Paul is meaning when it says that every spiritual blessing in heaven is ours, and here we find a bit more of an explanation. In Colossians chapter three, verse one to three, Paul says, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds to things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Paul says, if then you have been raised with Christ, he's not talking about those who have died and gone to heaven.

Instead, he is talking about those who have died to self and are now living and reigning with Christ in heavenly places, even while their address is still here on earth. Earlier this morning during our Sunday school, we discussed a little bit about why it's so important that we evangelize individuals and help folks come to know this life-saving gospel.

It's because as we do so, we are fulfilling the great commission work of making disciples, and also the work that Christ said that this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the earth as a witness to the nations, and as we discuss and as we preach this kingdom, that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are helping, we are producing heaven even here on earth.

The church is a little slice of heaven. It's a little slice of heaven right here on earth that you and I get to enjoy. When we fellowship together, when we worship together, when we read the word of God together, we are sharing in that slice of spiritual blessings in heavenly places.

And so when God's word tells us that we are blessed in heavenly places, it means that our true possession is above where Christ is. And where Christ is, we will be also. And the Lord Jesus Christ reigning as King of Kings and Lord of Lords today, he invites us even now while we are still ambassadors living on this earth, going through the motions of life, he is calling us into sacred service.

He is calling us into sacred space. And we do so and we acknowledge this truth when we see that it is the blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus who has blessed us, the church in Christ with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places.

Though you may be sitting here in Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church, truly your address is in heavenly places from which you have a dual citizenship, not just an earthly one, but a heavenly one where we await the blessed Savior, even Jesus Christ, who by the power of his resurrection enables him to change our lowly status onto that which is like his glorious status and body.

Jesus Christ truly is the agent of blessing by which to church and as individual Christians, we can receive spiritual blessing in heavenly places. Jesus also put it this way, he says, put not your treasures on earth, but store up treasures where?

In heaven, amen. In heaven, where the thief cannot break in, where moth can't destroy, doesn't rust away, doesn't lose value like if you put your money in the stock market. This investment of placing your faith, placing your life in heavenly places reaps eternal reward, eternal reward.

What a blessing, what a blessing it is to know Jesus, to have spiritual blessings even in heavenly places, meaning our true possession is above where Christ is. Again, Christians are unique in that we, among all the peoples of the world, we have two unique citizenships.

Clearly, you are a citizen of this earth. You may be a citizen of a particular nation. Maybe some of you may even have dual citizenship. I know my kids have two children who have dual citizenships of the two greatest countries on earth, at least for now, which is United States and Canada.

So when they're older, they'll reap the blessings of those citizenships. They can go to school, they can work in the United States or Canada, and many doors of opportunities are open to them. Friends, the same is true of us in Christ.

God has granted us citizenship not only on this earth, but also in heaven, opening the door for us to live in the fullness of his plan and gospel work. You have citizenship to live, work, and breathe in this world, but you also have citizenship in heaven of which you are to declare the glorious gospel of that place we call heaven.

You are called to be an ambassador. You are called to be a witness of the spiritual blessings of the Father in heavenly places. For verse four again tells us that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

You have been called upward. You have been chosen onto a destiny, onto a life that you cannot even begin to imagine, that God in his infinite wisdom and his infinite might and his infinite and vast love for us chose us before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless.

You see, our hope is not merely in this world or in our possessions and our bank accounts and our worldly comforts, but our true possession is the one unseen to us by human eyes, but can be seen afar with eyes of faith.

That is our blessed hope to be with Christ, reigning with him at his side. So friends, I do not want you to fall into the temptation of living this blessed life in Christ with our eyes focused on the things below and not above because you were chosen for greater things.

You were called and blessed beyond everything that you can possibly imagine. And the Christian then should have his chin up, eyes toward heaven, where Christ is, knowing that you are indeed chosen and loved by the Savior.

To me, this is one of the most incredible pieces or verses in scripture. I don't know about you, but I read this and I just get so excited. I get filled with joy because life can be difficult. Sometimes in life, it feels like we don't really have a purpose and we don't know what our purpose is.

We don't know why we are where we are. We don't know why the things in life have happened to us in the way they've happened to us. But overall, we know and we can receive this hope from this scripture that he chose us in him, in Christ.

So regardless of your circumstance, regardless of your level of happiness, you can be assured of this, that you have been chosen in Christ. That should bring you immense joy and immense hope for the future because he chose us before the foundation of the world that we should be what?

Holy and blameless. Holy and blameless. The next part of our teaching, I want you to write this in. We are chosen before the foundations that we should be holy and blameless. What an unfathomable truth we are confronted with in this passage.

We see the past part of God's eternal plan informing his people, the church, before the world was. You see, the beauty of this doctrine, which we call election, is that God, in his eternal plan and a determinate plan for salvation, would choose us, that which Paul calls in Romans 9 objects of wrath, vessels of wrath.

In Ephesians 2, it says that we're objects of wrath and Romans 9 says that we were vessels of wrath prepared beforehand for dishonor and yet he chose some to be chosen to be vessels of mercy, to be chosen unto so great a salvation.

This is a true act of mercy. God has no obligation. He was under no obligation to choose anyone unto eternal life. God would be just as holy and righteous had he allowed humankind to go into a lost state in hell.

God does not need anything of us. God would be just as holy and righteous had he not saved a single soul. I think Paul Washer puts it this way. He says that God sent Satan and the demons no savior. They will go to hell.

They will be eternally punished for their wicked rebellion. Yet God, in his great love for us, sent us the savior in the fullness of time, born of the Virgin Mary, lived a life that you and I could not live, died the death that we deserved in order to give us so great a salvation and redemption.

And not only did he send forth his son in the fullness of time, before time even was, he had you in mind. Before the world even began to be, God chose you in Christ to be holy, set apart, and blameless.

Be blameless. Remember that when you're arguing with your spouse, that who the person you're arguing with is holy and blameless. I try to remind my wife of that all the time, but so is she. And so are you, beloved.

You are holy and blameless, which is to say that your state, your state before God isn't simply a sinner, but rather you have been translated, you have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son.

Your status has changed from sinner to saint. Your status has changed from depraved to blameless. But it's not because of you or any work that you have done or could do in righteousness, but it is because of the righteousness of Christ merited, bestowed upon you.

Christ's finished work on that cross can be applied to you. An act of grace, an act of mercy. Someone paid the price for you. And all that you must do now is receive it and live in that spiritual blessing, that spiritual reality.

Now the truth is, brothers and sisters, is that there are two realities that are opposed to each other in which we are stuck in the middle. We live in this world, this world that has still fallen under the conditions of sin, under the curse of Adam.

And we have to contend with that reality. We see crime, even just this morning, where you alerted to this Amber Alert of a missing child here in our community. What a tragedy. That's sin, brothers and sisters.

We live in a fallen world. Yet you and I have the benefit, the blessing of being chosen in Him before the foundation of the world so that we can be an embassy of holiness and blamelessness, so that we can be a light onto this community here that God has in His eternal plan placed us in.

You see, nothing in this world happens by accident. Every opportunity that God has opened in your life is an opportunity for you to share the grandeur and the blessing of who He is to this fallen world so that you can bring forward every spiritual blessing of the heavenly places with you, wherever it is that you go.

You were, again, chosen before the foundation of the world that you should be holy and blameless in Christ. Again, it was in His mercy and great love of which He loved us that He chose some to be chosen.

Now, the Greek word chosen, ekligo, is here used in a tense and a middle voice indicating that God's totally independent choice is what He is exercising in His choosing of His people. Again, part of the beauty of the doctrine of election is that it is the opposite of a democracy.

We live in a democratic republic here in the United States, but God's kingdom, the kingdom for which we pray for it to come, be manifested on earth as it is in heaven for His will to be done, His kingdom is not a democracy.

Rather, it is a theocracy. I'm not talking about a theocracy in which some guy is trying to rule the world by means of the biblical law, but rather, it is a government that's centered upon God Himself, where God, the word theocracy, meaning God rule, God is the ruler, and His theocracy and His kingdom, the only election is the election that He holds for His people.

You see, in a democratic state, we elect our leaders, but in a theocratic state, God elects His people. See, God's not up for election. He's not up for reelection every four years. He's on the throne.

He's enthroned as King of kings and Lord of lords. There is no one who will change that status. He is immovable, immutable in His position. But in His mercy, He chooses, He elects some to partake in His kingdom.

What an act of total mercy, total grace. Again, God does not, He does not owe anyone anything, doesn't owe anyone salvation, for the Bible says that in our broken state through Adam, there is no one righteous, no, not even one.

There is no one who does good, no one who even seeks after God. All are totally lost and depraved, apart from the intervention and life-saving work of the gospel and our lives through the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, for those who put their trust and faith in Jesus, you can live with the confidence of being chosen. And not only were we chosen, but we were chosen unto holiness and to be called blameless.

Don't forget what you were chosen to be, holy and blameless. What a spiritual blessing that is. Is it not, brothers and sisters? Remember your position. Remember where God has saved you onto. We're not just saved from a pass of sin, we are saved onto a glorious future in Christ.

The text goes on to say in the end part of verse four and the beginning of verse five of Ephesians chapter one, in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

God Predestined Us for Adoption According to His Will

Praise God. You know, it was in love that God chose us. Thinking about the motivation for God in bringing forth a redemptive plan that would bring salvation to the nations, his motivation was his love for his people.

Love for the eternal son of God, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Love for the creatures that he made even in his own image. Love is what motivated the heart of God to call us to be holy and blameless before the world was.

I know that sometimes as being in the reform camp, we don't emphasize the love of God for fear of saying, well, no, we gotta remember God's justice and his wrath, and let me remind you of all of those things.

God is indeed a just, holy, and righteous God. Yet in his righteousness and in his holiness, what is exemplified most greatest to us in his attributes and qualities is his love. For as the Apostle John says, God is love.

Not that love is God. Certainly the world seems to think that's the case, but instead that God is love. And what kind of love are we talking about? Some of you may know there's a couple of Greek words for love, and every time that is referring to God's love, it's the Greek word agape, which is a sacrificial love, a love that doesn't just takes, but gives.

It's the same love with which Christ loved us, the same love that we see in John 3 .16. For in this way did God demonstrate his love that he sent forth his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son, to bear our sin, to bear our wrath, the wrath that was rightly deserved to us, because God is indeed righteous and holy, and sin must be accounted for.

And he bears his wrath upon his divine Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus on that cross is demonstrating the immense love that God has for his creation, even those who were rebels, those who were despicable sons and daughters of Adam, but those whom he decided in eternity past to redeem through the blood of his own Son.

And what does he call this to? The rebel sons of Adam, through faith in Jesus, can be called the children of God. Notice what the text says again. In verse five, he predestined us for adoption, for adoption.

You didn't even know you were up for adoption. God adopted you through Jesus, chose you, not when you were a cute little innocent baby, but while you were a sinner, cursing the name of the one who created you, throwing stones at his holy temple.

And yet in that state of brokenness, in that fallen state in which you were in Adam, he adopted you. And he said, I want that son, I want that daughter to be mine, to be holy and blameless. Do you see why it is then that Paul opens up this great discourse by saying, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing and to heavenly places?

Because you were chosen, not because you were great, not because of your potential, not because of how cute you were, but because of the great love of which he loved you. Finding no good in you, he chose you anyways.

He chose you anyways. Therefore, what a blessed state we are in, to know him, having been predestined. Here's that word, predestined. You know, there's no bones about it here in this church, we are a Reformed Baptist church.

When I bring up that word in other settings, the previous church where I was at, and I said to them, preaching from this text before, I said, I don't know how you can get around this word. Predestined, literally meaning predestined, or foreordained, predetermined.

He predetermined the outcome before time even was. Can't get around that. Pretty powerful, pretty incredible word that is used here. And he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons, through Jesus Christ, according to what?

The purpose of his will, of his will. I want you to write that in there, if you haven't already, in that bullet point. It was in love that he predestined us for adoption, according to the purpose of his will.

I wanna highlight three things in this one text. First and foremost, as we just emphasized, the immense love of God. In love, he predestined us, in love. Not out of malice, not out of any other motive, but out of love, which means then, the implication is that we are loved in Christ.

We're loved in him. We also wanna highlight the word adoption. It was love that motivated the heart of God to lead you into adoption, and you were adopted the moment that you received the Lord Jesus Christ, having repented of your sins, having put all your trust in Jesus.

The Bible says that at that moment, you were transferred from death to life. You were born again. You were made new. Born again is a word that means to be born from above. And God made you a new creation in Christ.

Behold, the old is gone, and the new has come. He's adopted you, because he loved you. And you were adopted into the family of God, into the family of God. God being our father, the Lord Jesus Christ being our brother, and the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, so that we may be holy and blameless in his sight.

Not only were you adopted, but you were loved and adopted for a purpose. You're wondering, why was I made? Why did God make me? Why did God place me here? Why did God give me the family that I have? Why did God make life so difficult for me?

Brothers and sisters, God made you, loved you, adopted you onto a purpose. You are loved. You are adopted. You have a purpose. You have a purpose in Christ. And it's the greatest purpose that anyone could ever have.

Greater than starting a Fortune 500 company. Greater than working for some of the greatest companies on the face of the earth, like Google and Apple. Greater than any other thing that you can possibly imagine.

You were given a purpose to know the excellencies of he who made the cosmos. He who made everything has called you to be a son and a daughter. You're made to be part of the household of God. See, the motive for God choosing his elect is love.

His love is what moved him to have mercy on rebel sons and daughters of Adam, to turn them, the sons of men, into the sons of God. It was his agape love in which he predestined us to be adopted according to the purpose of his will.

You were chosen onto the purpose of his will. Predestined again, meaning predetermined beforehand or foreordained. The Lord does not blindly or in an indeterminate fashion allow the cosmos to operate and go.

But the cosmos and even your life is working all things according to his plan and purpose for you. Therefore, take assurance in God's immense love, his immense pleasure that he had in adopting you as a son or daughter, and have confidence in his purpose for your life.

For when we discover our purpose, when we discover why it is that we were made, we can now begin to live in the fullness of the spiritual blessings by which he has blessed us in the beloved. We can live life to the fullest, knowing why we were made and what we were made onto.

And we were made to declare this good news. We were made, as the Westminster Catechism would put it, to know God, to worship him, and to enjoy him forever. Onto that purpose we were made. And onto that purpose we gather together on the Lord's day to worship him, to declare him, to make him known, to be edified so that we can go back into the world and make him known.

You see, our mission field goes way beyond the four walls of the church. We come to church not merely to hear a good preacher, not merely to sing a couple songs and then go home, but we come to church to be edified so that we can then continue to live in the reality of the spiritual blessings of the heavenly places that you and I have been ordained to walk in.

So, therefore, have great courage. Have great confidence in God's purpose for your life, that wherever it is that God will lead you, he leads you by his good hand, by his good will, and he leads you into good pastures.

He leads you by still waters. His plan for you is never in question. That which the Lord has ordained for you will come to pass. What immense pleasure and confidence we can take in that. In Ephesians chapter one, notice verse six.

After receiving this word of being predestined unto adoption by the purpose of his will, verse six, Paul says to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In which he has blessed us in the beloved.

To the Praise of His Glorious Grace

The last bullet point or the last part of our insert this morning, God saves. God saves to the praise of his glorious grace. Why does God save anyone? Why does God, why did God in eternity past decide to save you and I?

To the praise of his glorious grace. To the praise of his glorious grace. There is another, however, motivating factor for which God saves, and it is for the glory of his name. We don't have time to go into that text, but it's there for you in 1 Samuel chapter 12, verse 22, where God saves a people according, not only the good pleasure of his will, but also to make his name known.

And as Christians, we have been saved by believing on the one whom God has sent. Believing on the name of the son of God, even Jesus Christ our Lord. And believing on him, we are transferred into a salvation that does not put us to shame, does not disappoint, but instead reaps the blessing and benefit of eternal life.

God saves according to the praise of his glorious grace and for the grandeur and the greatness and the making known and the sanctifying of his name. God desires to make his name great through you and I.

And onto that purpose, we have been called. Onto that purpose, we gather together on the Lord's day to sing praises to the one true and triune God, to make him known into this world that is dying and in desperate need of gospel, in desperate need of good news.

And in doing so, we do that which Christ commanded of us, in which he said that when the son of man be lifted high, he will draw all men unto himself. The job of the church, the job of adopted sons and daughters of Jesus Christ, of God the Father, is this, to lift up the name of Jesus so that then he can draw all men onto himself to the praise of his glorious grace.

To him be the glory both now and forevermore. Let me pray. Indeed, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.

Thank you, Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah, for you choosing us before the foundation of the world and you've called us, Lord, to be holy and blameless, before you. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that it was in love that you predestined us for adoption.

According to the purpose of your will, which you have been working out and exercising throughout redemptive history, to the praise of your glorious grace, which you have blessed us in, the beloved. Thank you, Lord, that we are called to be in the beloved, therefore become ourselves beloved.

Blessed Jesus, forgive us for where we fall short. Empower us by your spirit to live lives of holiness, to be called blameless, to be obedient onto that great and marvelous calling. And Lord, help us to live out the purpose for our lives, to know you, to worship you and enjoy you forever.

And we ask these things all in the precious name of Christ. Amen.