Ephesians 1 (part 2)

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Wrong Views On The Sovereignty Of God (part 3)

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are not there in the original. This was one letter that Paul wrote by the inspiration of the
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Spirit of God to the church at Ephesus, and other churches would receive it, and 2 ,000 years later, we're also studying it because it comes from God, and God is, of course, relevant for today as sin is relevant and righteousness is.
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I normally take, I don't know, two or three verses a time to preach through, but I'd like to preach through Ephesians in 12 weeks.
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There are six chapters, so half a chapter per week. This is the second week, and so I'm gonna try to finish the book of Ephesians chapter or finish the chapter one, and basically, if you'd like an outline, big picture, there are three sentences in these 23 verses.
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In English, it looks like there are many sentences, but in the original language, the Old Testament is written in Hebrew mainly, and the
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New Testament is written all in Greek, and there are three sentences, and the three sentences are our outline.
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Verses one to two, the preface, kind of an introduction, verses three through 14, the praise, and then verses 15 through 23, the prayer.
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So if you like outlines and you like to see progress in where we're going and how we're moving through things, the preface, the praise, and the prayer, and that is
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Ephesians chapter one, and this, by the way, is one of those chapters that just is wonderful.
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Sometimes it's hard to preach other passages, like the Witch of Endor would be hard to preach. I'd still preach it, but it'd be hard to preach.
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Ephesians chapter one, if I had kind of a random thing at seminary class and I was assigned as a young preacher,
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Ephesians chapter one, I would think those poor other guys, what did they get? And it's exciting because it's all about who the
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Lord is and what he's done. You have regularly and often have read Ephesians to your heart's joy and to your heart's content.
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The preface, the praise, and the prayer. Now, last week, we saw the preface, and we'll just have a little bit of a review, not a long review, but some.
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Ephesians chapter one, verse one, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are, and in the original, it just said, in blank, like you would fill it in.
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A few of the manuscripts said Ephesus, but the oldest ones, the best ones, had a blank there.
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So this is what we call a circular letter. It would just be filled in in Ephesus, in West Boylston, wherever it might be.
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It's good information for all churches, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus.
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And Paul, like a good pastor, wants his people to have assurance. If you're here and you're not a
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Christian, I don't want you to be sure or to have assurance. But if you are a Christian, that's one of the things we do on Sundays is to come and hear from God's word to remind us that it's not our relationship with God, what we do to God, our works unto
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God, our merit unto God, somehow pleases Him so that we'll be accepted. No, we are accepted by God, by free and sovereign grace.
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And every day we wake up in a works -oriented world and we need to hear this language, maybe the most difficult language in all the world to understand.
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I heard Mandarin is hard to understand. I heard Navajo is difficult to learn. But there's the language of the gospel that's impossible to understand without the spirit of God.
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And it's impossible to understand by yourself without revelation. Every week you need to hear from the pulpit, dear
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Christian, things like verse two, grace to you and peace from God our
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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Instead of wrath coming to you, instead of Sinai coming to you, instead of what our sins deserve coming to us, no, grace and peace.
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If you want to summarize all the New Testament, if you want to summarize this book, it could probably be with those three words, three
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English words, grace and peace. Peace being we're okay with God, we were unreconciled, now we're reconciled.
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No longer at war, but at peace. Grace, not just unmerited favor, but demerited favor.
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We earned His demerit and now we have grace. So far everything about this book is
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God -centered. I like to talk about me, enough about you, let's talk about me, but Paul won't do that.
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Paul wants to make sure it's God -centered. And then we move to the praise.
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I don't know if you know that Diana was at Ephesus, one of the seventh wonders of the world, and I heard her construction was precise, elegant, wonderful, and some writers say, but the way
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Ephesians is constructed, more precise, more wonderful. The praise sentence, verses three through 14, all one sentence in the original, and it's a triune praise.
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Verses four through six, talk about the Father. Verses seven through 12, talk about the Son. Verses 13 and 14, talk about the
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Spirit of God. You have the Father selecting, you have the Son sacrificing, you have the
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Spirit sealing. Everything about it is this praise. Do you notice verse three? Blessed be the
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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
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It's supposed to promote praise. It's supposed to make you think, man, this is amazing. This is wonderful what
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God has done. Some call it a praise psalm.
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I think they could be right. And at the end of verse six, we saw last week, it ends with this praise.
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When you talk about the Father electing, it talks about praise. At verse 12, how does it end?
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After the Son redeems, and we learn about that, it talks about praise. And in verse 14, the same thing happens to the praise of His glory.
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Everything about this triune praise and the sovereignty of God and the plan of salvation, including the
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Son's sacrifice and the Holy Spirit sealing is engendering praise.
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It should engender it out. It's kind of like, you put the water in the teapot and turn it up, and it's got a little thing on the top, a little valve, and before you know it, that teapot starts to what?
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What does it do? I didn't really want the sound, but that's good enough.
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It starts to sing. It's getting hot enough, and something comes out, and there's this sound.
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It's like Paul wants our hearts to be so hot before you know it. We just begin to say, God, you're wonderful.
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God, you're amazing. God, you're awesome. One writer said the design of the apostle, therefore, is asserting the riches of divine grace toward the
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Ephesians was to protect them against having their faith shaken by the false apostles. You know, one of the great things about learning true doctrine, about election, about redemption, and about sealing, when false doctrines come along through false people, false hypocritical lie speakers, as Paul calls them in another book,
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I just listen to what they're trying to sell me, and I think, you've got nothing on the real gospel. What you're trying to sell me, do good, be better, 2
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Nephi in the Book of Mormon, you're saved by grace after all you can do. I'm thinking, now that I know this, why would
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I ever go to what you're selling? You're selling me pabulum. You're selling me, I don't know, some kind of waterless stew.
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Is that such a thing? It's locale. That's the problem.
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You come to this passage, and you say it protects me from false teachers, but also, it makes me think, my salvation wasn't just like thawed up overnight.
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What am I going to do about Abendroth in Omaha? I think he needs some help. Well, what about this person here?
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What about that? Friends, you read this, it's planned. One purpose, one decree, no flowcharts, no plan
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B. This is the plan, the only plan of salvation. And this is all about the
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Trinity. Spurgeon said, nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the deity, the knowledge of the
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Godhead in the glorious Trinity. So Paul praises, as we saw last week, the
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Father for choosing. You see it in verse four, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. When did
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God choose? How did God choose? He chose before the foundation of the world, and that means He chose freely that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
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What does election do? It stimulates obedience. It stimulates faithfulness. It stimulates fruit bearing, but fruit bearing and obedience and faithfulness isn't the cause, it's the result, it's the fruit.
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In love, He predestined us, verse five, for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which
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He has blessed us in the beloved. Paul starts off by saying the
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Father should be praised because He chooses before the foundation of the world, and in love, He predestines.
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I asked last week, when's the last time you said, Lord, thank you for choosing me. Thank you for choosing me.
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I praise you for that. And by the way, Paul's not arguing for election. Now, I know there's a lot of objections, and I'm not so sure about this, and some people get mad about election, and so we're just gonna work our way through.
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Let me just tell you why election's true. Paul doesn't do that. Paul is, this is election.
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He is saying, this is a fact, and you should accept it as a fact, and you should accept it as a praiseworthy fact.
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I mean, I guess I could ask it this way. Did the Holy Spirit mess up by putting election in this section?
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Did He make a mistake? Did He think, well, you know what? He usually tried to inspire things well, but this time
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He didn't quite make it. One writer says, Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit in which as nothing is omitted, that is both necessary and useful to know.
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Therefore, we must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture, lest we seem either wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their
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God, or to abuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit, for I've published what is in any way profitable to suppress.
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He didn't make a mistake. He put this here up front. Election, sovereign choice of choosing individuals for salvation freely, unconditionally before the foundation of the world.
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Well, Paul goes on to praise God for the Son, verses 7 through 12.
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I mean, he was talking about how great election is, how God chose us. Remember, God didn't have to choose anyone.
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With His justice, He didn't have to choose anyone. He could have chosen all, that's true, but He just chose some because that's what
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God does. And now the second stanza of praise after the
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Father's choosing is the Son and His sacrifice. In Him, verse 7, we have redemption.
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Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life. In Him, we aren't waiting for redemption. It's not like we hope we get it.
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We'll see on that final day He made redemption possible. You have to do something.
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In Him, we have redemption. This is the language of the Jews, right? Israel redeemed out of Egypt.
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We redeemed out of the slave pit of sin. People say, well, I'm free.
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I have free will as an unbeliever. I'm free to do whatever I have. The Bible teaches, as we'll learn next
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Sunday, sin is like a vice grip. Sin is like a ratchet. Sin is like a cable tie.
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It goes one way, and the more you sin, the more it constrains. The sinner's not free.
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He's a slave, and he needs to be redeemed. And to be redeemed, you have to have a ransom price. You have to pay off the redemption price, and the ransom price is the
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Lord Jesus Himself. Romans 3, it says, by His grace, through the redemption which is in Christ.
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Galatians 3, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. Hebrews 9,
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He, Jesus, entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
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Mark chapter 10, even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many.
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That's the price of redemption, was His blood. You see it in the text right there, verse seven, through His blood,
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His vicious, vicarious, bloody, substitutionary death. And of course, when you think about forgiveness, you could think about it two different ways.
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You think about the word propitiation and expiation. Both are true. Propitiation says
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God is holy and therefore is wrathful against sin, and God's wrath needs to be assuaged or exhausted.
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And that's the word propitiation. Expiation is when God forgives us and our sins go away.
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And you can think also very quickly, probably about the Old Testament, when they had two animals and on one animal, they laid their hands on their head of that goat and sent it into the wilderness by the hand of the man who stands in readiness.
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And the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land. Propitiation, God's wrath assuaged.
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Expiation, forgiveness, all our sins are gone. Run away, forever gone.
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That's what Paul is talking about here. You're released from guilt. If you're a Christian, you are forgiven, released from all your guilt.
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That one particular sin I did 10 years ago, released, it's gone. It's in the wilderness. God remembers it no more.
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He's forgiven us all of our transgressions, Colossians 2. Who would do that?
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What would motivate someone to do that? You see it in verse seven, do you not? According to the riches of His grace, the triune
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God would do that. Why would He do it? Because He's full of grace. Which He lavished upon us.
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Not fractions, not decimals. When I think of lavished, you know what I think of? The other day I was watching some kind of highlights or something, you know when a football team wins or a rugby team or soccer team, whatever, they have the big kind of Gatorade buckets and some of the big football players will come over and they'll dump it on the coach's heads, right?
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They did that to a coach the other day, but not with Gatorade, not with Propel or whatever these new ones are.
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They did it with mayonnaise. Now that's what I'm talking about. If you ever do that to me, you're fired.
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But not just sprinkling on, not just a little dab will do you, it's lavished on, poured out.
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And He does it with wisdom too, verse eight. He lavished this upon us in all wisdom and insight.
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He made known to us the mystery of His will according to the kind intention which He purposed in Him. He could have done all this and never told us and it'd still be true, but He wants us to know.
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Why does He want us to know? Because He's a God who reveals, not conceals, and He's a
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God as He reveals things to you, you respond. Let me teach you a little paradigm.
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Revelation, response. You look at a baby being born, revelation of God and His wisdom, or you look at a sunset and you respond with, wow, amazing, tears, mouth open, gaping wide.
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Revelation, response. It's the same thing with this kind of revelation too. You learn some secrets about God found in Scripture that only
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He knows about, but He's told you, then you respond. That's why after the sermon, we have a hymn because you've learned
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God's word and hopefully you're thinking, I need to do something about this. I wanna sing about it.
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Revelation and response. And so God wants the response from you, dear Christian, to be praise, praise.
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You say to yourself, He made known to me the mystery of His will. This is not mysterious, spooky stuff.
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This is something was true. It's yet to be revealed. Now He reveals it. Now we know. Now we praise.
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Wiersbe said believers are part of God's inner circle. We know why things are.
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No wonder sometimes the psalmist says, we're smarter than our teachers. When I'd sit in classrooms sometimes,
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I never thought I have a higher IQ than my secular teachers, but I think I know the mysteries of the universe because they've been revealed to me.
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Why are they revealed? Verse nine, according to the kind intention which He purposed in Him.
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And you just see those words, they're not throwaway words, grace, mercy, kindness, lavish. Okay, think for a second.
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If it's purposed in God, if it's knowledge that's already in His mind because He knows everything and now
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He reveals it to us, why would we ever say election, new, novel, redemption, new, novel?
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New stuff isn't good, but things that have been determined in eternity past now revealed to us, that's good.
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Some people have seen that movie, The Greatest Story Ever Told. I think it's a religious movie, isn't it, about Jesus?
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How about this? The greatest story is told. We know the story. God made known,
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He discloses. He didn't keep it to Himself because it's according to His kind intention.
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And now we come to verse 10. It's interesting. Verse 10,
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I call Route 110. How many people drove on Route 110 today? You either did that or you rode your snowmobile.
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Public transportation right out here. Is it Route 110 or Highway 110?
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Route, so we're gonna call this Route 110. So every time you see Route 110, I want you to think of Ephesians 110.
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Now the world's crazy. The world's getting crazier. You look at everything and you're like, this thing is just like fragmented.
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This thing is crazy. I wonder what's going to happen with the whole thing. I mean, some of us are trusting in politicians.
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Some of us are trusting in medicine. Some of us are trusting in horses. What's going on?
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Verse 10, as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.
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Lloyd -Jones called this passage Route 110. He said, I do not hesitate to assert that we have in this verse, the key to the understanding of the chief practical purpose of Ephesians.
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This universe is going to be restored. This universe is going to be taken care of positively.
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God did not just say, you know what? Wind everything up, let it go. It might even look like that's true sometimes, but that's not what this verse talks about.
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The creator of the universe has a purpose for the universe. The God who plans out salvation includes planning out what the universe will look like.
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History is not circular, but linear. There's a goal, there's an ending. And Paul does not want you to say,
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I'm so despairing because of the world. I'm so pessimistic because of the world. I can't take it anymore.
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Down, dour, depressed. Remember, he's wanting to engender praise. And how do you engender praise?
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When you talk about the son. The son redeems, you're forgiven, but the son is also going to take care of this entire universe.
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From God's vantage point, everything is under his sovereign control and moving perfectly without exception.
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Pink said God's purpose was concerned with everything, whether great or small, good or evil.
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Now this word there, summing up in verse 10, if you have a new American standard or uniting in the
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ESV, it means to bring back together again. Not just together again, but things were apart and now they need to be together again.
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You can think about biblical history. It starts off with a garden and then there's a fall and then there's chaos and then there's confusion with Babel and then there's all kinds of other stuff going on, but there is going to be the final consummation.
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This is putting everything back together again. Now, I've been using Apple MacBook Pros for quite some time now, so I don't really remember.
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I think the last Windows I had were maybe Windows XP or something like that. Windows 95 on my
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SX386 or something, who knows what I had. Sometimes I would have to defrag the computer.
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Get all the kind of bricks of data all put back together because as you use it for a while, they're just all crazy.
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The idea here is Jesus, the sovereign one, not only saves you, but he's going to defrag the universe at the end of time.
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Does that make sense? So I'm trying to contextualize this. The universe is going to be defragged.
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1 Corinthians 15, when all things are subject to Jesus, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him that God may be in all.
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Colossians 1, through Jesus reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
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Though through him I say whether things on earth are things in heaven. That includes everything.
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Divine management over every single thing. The fall reversed and the false effects reversed.
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Restoration of all creation from the effects of Adam's sin and consequently our sins.
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Verse 11, it's kind of interesting here. You're going to have to be careful when you read the Bible because every time you read the word we, it might not be we, all of us.
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It's tricky here. You have to read wisely. Verse 11, 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.
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By the way, who was first to hope in Christ? Who's the we? Jews. I'll prove it.
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Let me keep reading though. So that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. Verse 13, in him you
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Gentiles also at Ephesus, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the
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Holy Spirit, the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
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Make sure when you read the we in verse 11 and the we in verse 12, it's the
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Jews. It's those first believers, then the Gentiles. That's God's economy then.
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We move to section three here in our triune praise, verses three through 14.
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Let's take a look at verses 13 and 14 for a few minutes. This is the Spirit's sealing ministry.
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If you think you can lose your salvation, you already did or you will.
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We lose things. Some of us can't even find our keys. We can't find our wallets.
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I mean, how many things do you have to check, right? You know how for guys, it's like wallet check, phone check, keys check, nine millimeter check.
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I mean, that's just how we do things. I have this battery pack here for my amplification.
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I'm always thinking, what is that? What kind of thing is that? What kind of gun is that? Wait a second,
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Satan's real, the world's real. My own sins are real. I heard the profession right over there. I still struggle with sin as a
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Christian. What if we can lose our salvation? Here's the better question.
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Can the Holy Spirit lose you? That's the point. If you could lose or he could lose, there's no sense praising.
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But since God can be praised and must be praised, what God starts, He finishes. If the Father elects and the
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Son dies for, I'm positive the Holy Spirit's not going to fumble the ball. Verse 13, in Him you also, whether you're
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Jew or Gentile, you've heard the word of truth, the good news of your salvation. The response of the
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Gospel is believe. We're sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
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You're not sealed with a force, it's a person. The Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory?
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You're sealed. That word seal is exactly what you think of with wax and a seal for an envelope to secure it.
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That's what that word seal means. When they sealed the tomb of Jesus, because Pontius Pilate wanted to make sure the body wasn't stolen so the followers of Jesus wouldn't say, ah, he's been resurrected.
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There's a seal, you can't get in. Seals mean ownership, this is my personal seal.
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But sealing mainly talks about protection. I'm protected, I'm safe, eternal protection.
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Psalm 37 there is preserved forever. Hebrews 13, I will never desert you, nor will
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I ever forsake you. Well, there's another verse there, verse 14, who was given as a pledge of our inheritance.
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A pledge, an earnest, a down payment. Here's a guarantee of our final salvation.
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Now, when I get down on my knee, as it were somebody actually in this congregation, I think you did it even within the last week, did you not?
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You got down on your knee and there's the New York City skyline at night, and Daniel Evangelista got down on his six foot four knee, and he said, will you marry me?
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Kelly said yes, and then he gave her the down payment. He gave her the pledge, he gave her the wedding ring, the
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Erebon, that's the word. The spirit of God is in me, I know he's in me, he's convicting me, he's encouraging me, and I know he now will keep his promise because he is the guarantee of my complete full salvation.
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It's the first installment of the final payment. It's a pledge of a business transaction, guaranteeing our future inheritance.
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All this talk about you can lose your salvation ignores or distorts the work of the triune
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God. The Father electing, the Son sacrificing, the Spirit sealing, can
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God lose a Christian? May it never be. He, the
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Holy Spirit, has given to us as a pledge. Paul talks about the triune
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God, and as Gregory says, no sooner do I conceive of the one that I'm illumined by the splendor of the three.
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No sooner do I extinguish them that I'm carried back to the one. When I think of any of the one of the three, I think of them as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what
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I'm thinking escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one, so as an attribute of the greater greatness to the rest.
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I contemplate the three together. I see one torch, but I cannot divide or measure out the undivided light.
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If the Father saves you by election, the Son sacrifices himself for you, the
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Spirit will seal you. Now we move to the third sentence. We've seen the preface, we've seen the praise, and now the third sentence.
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There's some argument if it's a complete sentence or two sentences, but we'll say it's a one full sentence, verses 15 through 23, and this is the prayer.
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Okay, pastorally speaking, let's just think about this first. Remember that old acronym, ACTS, A -C -T -S, to help us when we pray.
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Our default when we pray is often, I need, I need, I need help. Could you do this? And there's nothing wrong with asking the
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Father for help. But there's everything right with framing things first.
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So the ACTS acronym, which is what? What's the A? Adoration, C. Confession, T.
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S. Good. What Paul does before there's any kind of T, thanksgiving, he has given us, in verses three through 14, the adoration.
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It's the adoration, and now it's the prayer. The first part of the prayer is the praise, and now he moves to the thanksgiving.
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Not confession, but thanksgiving. Let me just say this. When you struggle with praying, why don't you start off with thinking about the triune
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God in election, redemption, and sealing. That's how Paul is teaching you right here to do it.
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Instead of, oh God, I need this, and God, I need that. Ian Hamilton said, having a hard time praying, praise first.
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Reflect on God's riches in Christ. Pray for others is fueled by praise to God. That's interesting.
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He is now gonna pray for other people. What's Paul's fuel to pray for other people? Praising the triune
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God. And what would
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Paul pray for? That's another good question before we look at this section. Oh, there's a lot of persecution. Seven sons of Sceva are running around here,
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Temple of Diana. A lot of us need jobs. Can't get a job as a Christian around here.
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We need health. Our health is bad. Is there anything wrong with praying for protection, for jobs?
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No, but that's not what Paul prays for. What does Paul pray for? Verse 15, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the
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Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.
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For this reason, verse 15. What reason? That points right back to verses three, four, all the way through verse 14.
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For the reason that God chose you in eternity past, for the reason why Jesus redeems you, for the reason why the
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Spirit of God seals you, I've heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and how you love other people.
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And so I just keep thanking God for people like you, remembering you in my prayers. Thankfulness, intercession.
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You know what I like about Paul? He doesn't try to act cool. I wonder what our church would be like if we had meet each other on Sunday morning and after the high, how are you?
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How'd your week go? And what about the Patriots or whatever we talked about?
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I'm so thankful that God saves, elects, son sacrifices, and the
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Spirit seals. You've been on my heart all week. I just thank God for you. It's like we're afraid to talk that way.
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He didn't try to say, well, you know what? I am really thankful for you, but I don't really want to show it. Kind of like my dad in 1965.
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I love you, Mike, but he can't say it, so I just have to assume it. I thank God for you.
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I see what God's doing in you and through you. I see how He, I see the fruit of His election and the
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Son's redemption and the Spirit sealing. I see all that. I just haven't been praying this week. I thank God for you.
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Part of it is we know too much about each other, right? We're like, oh, great. Here comes that person again.
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I thank God for you. I've just been praying for you. I thank God for what He's done for you. You heard the testimonies today.
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By the way, the three that got baptized, I'd like you to stand at the door on the way out so we can just say,
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I thank God for what He's done in your life. That's what we were doing when we were crying and listening.
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He said, I just don't stop praying for you, making mention of you in my prayers. They started in the faith, they're continuing, they're elect, they're redeemed, they're sealed.
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You want to know the heart of joy? Here it is. And now He moves in the prayer more generally.
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Don't go too fast. By the way, He's not talking about you have to be on your knees. He's not talking about prayer posture.
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He's not talking about being in your closet. That's all fine. But here Paul says, here's what
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I'm praying, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.
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Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which
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He has called you. What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints?
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Do you see it? It doesn't really need exposition. What Paul is not saying is,
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I need new revelations. I need another Damascus Road experience.
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I need something outside God's Word. I need feelings and subjectivism.
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What does Paul pray for? Well, we already have this knowledge of God. We've seen it in verses three through 14 of the same chapter.
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Now I just want you to know that better. I want you to know God better, to know God deeper.
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Not anything new, but a deeper knowledge of God. This is a prayer for illumination.
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I want you to precisely know Him, intimately know Him, not just about Him, a deep, full knowledge of God.
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Not just the facts. I mean, left to myself, I'm just kind of like that old 60s police detective show or whatever.
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Remember Dragnet? What did he always say to the person who was a witness and they just kept running on and on and on, telling their own stories?
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What did he say to them? Just the facts, ma 'am. You pagans know every word in like every show, but I still thank
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God for you. Okay, I just need the facts about God.
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I don't need to go any farther. Sinner, death, burial, resurrection, good to go. Don't have to go to hell at least, now
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I can go live my life. And here for Paul, I just want you to know God deeply. By the way, in heaven, you'll still be mining the riches of this kind of knowledge.
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You'll know as you're known, that's true, but you won't know infinite God ever. You'll just know what
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He's revealed and what a glorified mind can know. Lord, I'd like to pray for other people that they could get to know
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God better. I'd like to know God better. I'd like to know you better. This is eternal life,
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Jesus said, that they may know you, the only true God in Jesus whom you have sent personally.
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It may give you, you see the text, a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. And that's certainly in God's word.
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He's not talking about something outside of His word. The spirit of God doesn't do that. And while the world says, get to know other people, get to know yourself,
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Paul says, I want you to know God through Christ. That's what I want. I want you to understand
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Him and believe Him, so you know Him better. So you can just see the wonder of it all. So you too, 25 years after you're converted, like Paul, praising
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God, the Father of glory. Think God would answer that prayer? I would like to know you better,
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God. I'd like other people to know you better. I think we know the answer to that.
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Praying that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. Side note, eyes of your heart. We tend to think of this.
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We got head knowledge and heart knowledge. This is just the hardest 12 inches of the world. But for Paul, he has heart enlightened because your heart's like a mission control center.
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Your heart's not your emotions, although emotions can be involved. But I'm praying the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.
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How can your heart be enlightened if your heart's just feeling? Well, your heart isn't feeling if you're thinking like a
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Jewish person or a person reading the Bible. I'm struggling with my health.
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I have family members that are going through difficult times. We've lost loved ones. And Paul is saying, let me rejuvenate you.
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Let me refresh you. Let me reawaken you to who this God is. Psalm 13, consider and answer me, oh
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Lord, my God, enlighten my eyes. Psalm 19, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
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God, I used to be a pagan and I had my eyes, my spiritual eyes gouged out like Samson did. But now you've given me eyes to see.
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Could you just give me more clarity? I'm not asking about propositions,
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Lord, although that's included, I'd like to have fellowship with you, to know you. And now
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Paul goes on to pray for three particular things in verses 18, 19 and part of 20.
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He prays for hope, inheritance, and power. Hope, inheritance, and power.
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To know Christ is to know his benefits, Melanchthon said. And so now he prays for hope, inheritance, and empower.
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And you're going to be surprised. First, he says, so that you may know is the hope of his calling.
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God's children, you dear Christian, need to know you're a Christian. That's why, as long as the elders are here, we are never going to go toward this kind of preaching.
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It's Roman Catholic preaching in essence, that basically assumes that none of you are Christians because you don't live up to Christianity.
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It is the doctrine of assurance that is needed. It's the doctrine of assurance that was part of the
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Reformation. That you may know what the hope of his calling is. Every child needs to know they're included in the family.
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Because we mess up, and then, did dad kick me out because I did this, that, or the other? My pagan dad,
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I did a lot of bad things growing up, and my pagan dad never kicked me out of the house. And here Paul is saying, you know what?
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If pagan dads know enough not to do that, how much more a thrice holy God? And we need to know what the hope of his calling is.
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Surety, hope, steadfastness. Mole described hope as faith standing on tiptoe.
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I'm just waiting for that future to come. 1
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Peter 1 calls it a living hope. Hebrews 6 says, this hope we have is an anchor of the soul.
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A hope both sure and steadfast in one who enters within the veil. We all know people who have loved ones who die, and then they have no hope, because they're not
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Christians. But we have hope, and God wants us to know that. He goes on, not just for hope, but inheritance.
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Okay, here we go. You're going to think that I'm a TV preacher right now when I read this. You're gonna go, he's off the deep end.
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He's crazy. His teeth are a little yellow, but his words are crazy.
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I'm not kidding. Get ready, buckle up. Having your eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which
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He has called you. What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints?
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Who? Who? Whose inheritance? If you've got the NAS, that His is capitalized, because His is
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His inheritance. He talked about our inheritance earlier. Guess who's God's inheritance?
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You! Wow. I almost kind of want to do that for a second.
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That would not be appropriate. We are God's possession. We are
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God's bride. We are God's special treasure. Unless people think
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I'm a crazy TV preacher, prosperity preacher. It's all because of Christ. He's the head, we're the body.
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If Israel was a prized possession, if Israel was the inheritance of God, well, how much more for us?
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We have inheritance, verse 11, verse 14, but now Paul switches it. He wants us to know about God better, and he prays that our hearts enlightened, and he wants to have now our hearts enlightened so that we can understand what are the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints.
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You, Christian, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own what?
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Possession! That you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
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The people being God's inheritance isn't foreign to the Old Testament. Psalm 2, ask of me and I will surely give the nations as thine inheritance.
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If the nations are thine inheritance, how much more individual Christians? Nothing about us, it's all about the work of God.
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He's the head, we're the body, but when we're in Christ, it all makes sense.
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F .F. Bruce, quote, Paul prays here that his readers will appreciate the value which
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God places on them, His plan to accomplish His eternal purpose through them as first fruits.
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I'm not saying God loves us and has us as an inheritance because we're so great.
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I always think about the illustration where you have makeovers, like beauty makeovers on your face and stuff.
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You ever watch those shows? I know some people do, they know every word of every show. Just the facts, ma 'am.
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They don't pick pretty people to do it too. I'm sorry if any of you have been there, sorry.
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They pick ugly people because they make them pretty. And then you don't say, wow, look at them, those people, look what they did to themselves.
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You say, look at the artist. Look at the beautician, not the magician.
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What's that old bumper sticker? It's the same thing here. I am not saying somehow innately because of who we are that somehow
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God values that. But I do know this, that if God values a sparrow,
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I think He values His bride more. I think that's biblical. God's inheritance are the saints.
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Yes, it's amazing.
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It's because we're in Christ. Then He prays for power. He prays for hope, for inheritance, power.
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Verse 19 and 20, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His great might?
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Greatness, power, working, might, that He worked in Christ when He raised
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Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. Is it gonna happen?
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Am I gonna have an inheritance? Will I be the inheritance? Rome is the king. Rome is the power. Rome is the authority.
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We're just a bunch of Christians running around without any power. What kind of power is there to help me?
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Answer, Paul says, resurrection power. What does it take to take a body that's dead and raise it to life?
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That's the power of the resurrection. Lloyd -Jones says, are you a miserable Christian feeling that the fight is too much for you?
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And are you on the point of giving up and giving in? You need to know the power that is working mightily in you, the same power that brought
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Christ from the dead. What we need is not an experience, Lloyd -Jones says, but to realize what we are and who we are, what
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God has done in Christ and the way He has blessed us. We fail to realize our privileges.
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Privileges. He just, in these verses, just stacks on.
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He just stacks on word after word after word so that we might grasp God's powerful election,
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God's powerful redemption, God's powerful sealing, all because of the power of the resurrection.
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I think that works in the life of a person. Or by the way, if I can just be nice about it, will my husband ever change?
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Will my wife ever change? Will my kids ever change? They're Christian people. It's called the power of the resurrection.
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The surpassing greatness. See it in verse 19? Surpassing greatness of His power. Paul wants to convince you.
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He wants you to know that God is working on your behalf and will bring you all the way home, no matter what
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Satan, demonic forces, or Diana will do. Verse 20, which he brought about in Christ when
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He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heavenly places. That's supposed to be encouraging.
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It is encouraging. Why would I want to despair? I live in a corrupt world, that's true, but I don't need to despair because God is at work in me to will and to work
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His good pleasure. Can God use me? Power of the resurrection, yes.
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And then he ends in verses 21 and 22. You didn't think I could do it, did you? You didn't think, ye of little faith.
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Well, you know, the Democrats are in control. Australia's government's in control. Israel's government's in control.
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Massachusetts, the government's in control. What can we do? How do we go about it? Everybody's in charge except us.
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We wouldn't run the world this way. Rome's not in charge.
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Caesar's not in charge. Who's in charge? Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named.
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You give me a name and I'll tell you there's a power over that, a rule over that, an authority over it, dominion over it.
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Every name that is named, not only in this age, but the one to come. Why?
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Because God is a God who's a sovereign, powerful, gracious God and He is going to protect
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His church. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him head over all things to the church.
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That's supposed to encourage. Everything under Jesus' rule and dominion. You say, well, it doesn't look like it.
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Of course, we have theological framework words like already, not yet.
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But Christ fills the church. Christ indwells the church. Paul wants us to know that the greatness of God compared to other heavenly beings, principalities, powers, mites, dominions, the
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Lord exceeds those. You say, yeah, but Adam lost his headship. Adam lost his power.
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Adam lost his dominion and authority. Well, we see the reversal here because of the risen
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Savior, the Lord Jesus. And basically here, you know what I like? Paul is saying, you have somebody you think is greater than the
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Lord Jesus, bring them on. I used to sell Duracell batteries and it's the copper top.
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And we had a competition called Energizer. And Energizer had a guy on a commercial,
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Robert Conrad, and he would put a little Energizer battery right here.
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And he's like, I dare you to knock it off. You've seen that commercial, haven't you? Come on, I dare you to knock this off.
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That's why Paul is just listing one thing after another, after another. People thought Satan ruled things.
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People thought angel ruled things. Satan has power, angels have power. But just give me a name who is above these persons in the triune
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God, Father, Son, and Spirit. Every name, Isis, Diana, King of Kings and Lord of Lords only goes to one.
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And he puts all things under the subjection of his feet. It's kind of like you didn't really buy all that.
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And I'm just hammering the nail one after another, after another. I think you put the clinch nail in, you don't hammer it all the way in.
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You just kind of hammer it down into the wood just to make it nice and snug. That's what verse 22 is. And by the way, it's a military term.
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They're all under his feet because he's the general. Christ is the king.
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That's why, you know what? I don't bind Satan. I don't send him away. I don't try to loose him.
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I don't try to blame him for my post -nasal drip. I don't do any of that stuff. Because of the
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Lord Jesus, right here, verse 22, he's the head. And this is still all tied to prayer.
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Did you get that? Hendrickson said, the church is Christ's body with which he is organically united.
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He loves it so much that it is its interest. He exercises in its interest.
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He exercises his infinite power in causing the entire universe with all that is in it to cooperate, whether willingly or unwillingly.
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Ephesians chapter one. Hasn't it been great? Verse one and two is the preface.
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Verses three through 14, it's the praise. Verses 15 through 23, it's the prayer.
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Next week, we'll look at Ephesians two, one to 10. So make sure you read it to your congregation every day. Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, you are to be blessed. Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, we have.
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Father, would you help us in our prayer life? Give us wisdom. We don't need to pray for new blessings, new graces, new mercies.
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We need to be reminded of the graces and mercies we have. Everything we have, we need.
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We just need to understand it better, to know you better. So I pray for that. I pray today for Bethlehem Bible Church, that they would be given the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Jesus.
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Having the eyes of their hearts enlightened so that they, Bethlehem Bible Church, might know what is the hope to which they've been called.
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What are the riches of their glorious inheritance in the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us,
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Bethlehem Bible Church? According to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead.