Ephesians 1:1-14, What's in It for Me?

Covenant Reformed Baptist Church

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Ephesians chapter 1, starting verse 1, hear the word of the Lord. 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 of God our

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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.

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Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

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In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has blessed us in the beloved.

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In him, we have a 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.

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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.

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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

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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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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Recently, as probably all of you know, we had a fire in our house and we still can't move back in, exactly three weeks later.

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The insurance company is supposed to take care of where we live until we can move back in.

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And at one point, they recommended we find an apartment or some kind of furnished house rather than stay in the hotel we were in, in Danville.

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When Mary kind of relayed that information to me, my first question was, hey, come on, what's in it for us?

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Keeping us, I understand, keeping us in that hotel for about a month would cost them $4 ,000 to $7 ,000.

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And so, I understand they want to save themselves a lot of money. And they were asking us kindly, of course, to find a cheaper place.

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But, you know, what's in it for me? Out of sheer compassion, is that why, for the poor old insurance company?

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Is that why we're supposed to move somewhere else? You know, in business, it's probably so basic that most people don't even bother to mention it. You have to offer something, you know, an incentive, a benefit for buying your product.

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You don't ask people to, you know, do me a favor and buy what I'm selling just because it's good for my business.

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Now, Alan may wish that his potential clients would choose quality construction because it's good for him. But I doubt he makes that part of his sales pitch,

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I doubt. I doubt you come to his sales pitch and say, please sign the contract with us because I want to get my own

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RV for going to the lake next summer. I don't think that's in there. I haven't asked him, but I'm just guessing.

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That's just not part of his sales pitch. He's got to offer something, a better product at a cheaper price. Now, people are constantly asking, what's in it for me?

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Those five words help you choose what clothes to wear, what food to eat, what people to hang around with, what movie to watch.

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Do you ask for a raise? Do you ask her out? Do you look for a new job?

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Who do you vote for? What church do you go to? Or do you go to church at all? Some people will tell you that it shouldn't be that way, that you shouldn't ask that question, even have that thought, that you should be entirely selfless, that you make your decisions by what's good for other people.

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Don't worry about profits, that you watch movies, by what movie needs the most viewers.

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What movie do you want to promote? We sometimes hear that about Christian movies, that we should go see them just to support them.

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You know, even if the acting is kind of stilted, and the writing is kind of trite, and it's just not particularly entertaining, or that you shouldn't vote for someone based just on what they will do for you.

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I mean, they'll cut your taxes, or they'll give you a bigger check, or help your favorite program, even if other people suffer.

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And surely, there's some truth to that, surely. You know, if the U .S. goes bankrupt because everyone voted for what was in their own short -term interest, that wouldn't be good for anyone.

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If you want decent movies to come out because you want the culture, your public morality to be better, maybe for yourself, for your children, coming generations, you're going to probably have to support some when they do come out.

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If I bankrupt my insurance company because I could only think of my greedy desire,

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I want to live in that luxury place, you know, my greedy desires now, in the long run, you know, that will be bad for me.

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But then, I'm still thinking of myself. You see, I'm saying don't think of the now, but I'm still thinking of myself.

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I'm just not squeezing everything I can out of the insurance company because I want them to stay around, or I don't want them to cancel me as a client.

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I'm voting for people with a longer -term view of what might happen to the country.

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But in all that, I'm still thinking, at least in a different way, but still thinking, what's in it for me?

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Now, just with a broader lens, taking in a bigger view, something that's called enlightened self -interest.

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But some will say, I shouldn't even do that. You know, there's a movement in theology in America in the very early years of the nation when some theologians said that Christians should be so absorbed by the glory of God and so willing to love their neighbors as themselves, even if nothing is in it for them.

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So totally selfless, what was called disinterested benevolence, and that they said

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Christians should be that way, so selfless that they should, quote, this is a quote, be willing to be damned for the glory of God.

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Now, that was one of their tests. If you were truly saved and truly mature, had truly encountered the

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Lord in salvation, you would then, they say, be willing to be damned for the glory of God.

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That is, you were willing to let God send you to an eternity in hell if that would give

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God more glory than by saving you. It was this goal of perfect selflessness, the quest to glorify

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God and to love others would so consume you, they said, you wouldn't even care about your own happiness anymore.

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Just wouldn't enter your mind. Not only would you be willing to sacrifice earthly things, you know, wouldn't that him let good and kindred go, this mortal life also?

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You'd even be willing to give up eternal life, willing to be damned for the glory of God.

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The problem with that, it sounds very spiritual in a way. Like it sounds almost like it should be right.

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But the problem with that is that is just not how loving God and being enraptured by his glory, taking up our cross and following Jesus.

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That's not how it's presented to us. The goal is, in the

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Bible, is not to be so selfless that we have no thought about our own salvation or our own fulfillment.

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The goal is that we be transformed, that now that we see

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God himself. We see knowing God, we see loving God as the greatest satisfaction.

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That that's how we get our happiness. That's how happiness is here and God's glory is here.

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We have to choose God's glory over our happiness. As John Piper very well puts it,

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God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. It's not as though, some people, as they imagine,

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God's glory and our joy are two separate things. And they're at war with each other.

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And that somehow, if we're mature and we're to come out on the side of God's glory against our own happiness, so much so that we're actually willing now to be miserable and glorify

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God rather than be joyful and satisfied and saved. That we have to choose between God's glory and our joy.

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And we know we're mature, they say, when we choose God's glory and don't care at all anymore about ourselves.

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No, that's all wrong. That's really not what it means to love and glorify

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God. It's really not what it means to be mature. It's not, what it means to be mature,

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I think, is that we no longer suspect that there is a conflict between our joy and God's glory.

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We see them connected. They're together. That we see that our greatest joy, happiness, satisfaction, blessedness, the biblical word, comes from glorifying

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God. And so then, it is impossible, at least for us believers, to imagine that we could glorify

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God by being damned. It just doesn't jive.

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God's glory and our happiness are the same thing.

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We see that here in Ephesians chapter one, especially in this opening praise. We see, really, there's just one main point.

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It's one sentence, it has one point. And an exclamation, blessed be God. And then seven things

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God does for us. God's glory and our happiness are intertwined, interdependent.

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Now, first of all, the letter begins, of course, as the letters did with an introduction, stating who it is from, who it's for.

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It's from Paul, an apostle. And you notice he emphasizes by the will of God, which tells us he's an apostle not by his own selfish aspiration, nor through political manipulation, didn't get people to vote for him, an apostle, or human nomination, but by divine designation.

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And that's who it's from. It is to the saints, which means, he says, you know, it's not these class of people higher than the rest, but the holy ones.

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Not just a few special super believers, you know, who were called saints, like St. Matthew or St.

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Paul, high above the rest of us lowly believers, but all those who are set aside by the word of God from the world.

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So, saints, and he calls them also believers, or the faithful. The word can mean either one, those full of faith.

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So, the letter that we have here was probably sent to Ephesus first, but this is really a very general letter.

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You don't have to really have to worry about what was happening in the church at Ephesus. It would seem to be a general letter to all the churches.

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And so, it's just as relevant to us today as it was to them then. Then, to them and to us, he says, in verse 2, is grace and peace.

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Now, in Jeremiah, remember, we saw that the false prophets and religious leaders were telling people who really weren't saints or faithful, that they have, remember that, peace, peace, when there is no peace.

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Here, the apostle Paul tells us that there is peace. You know, it's not always the promise, the pronouncement of peace is not always a false promise dispensed by false religion.

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Believers can have it now. Notice, from God our Father and the

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Lord Jesus Christ. If God is your Father and Jesus is your Lord, you have peace, real peace.

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It's not like Jeremiah, when there is no peace, they're here for these people. There is peace. That's what's in it for you.

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Well, that's the short introduction. In Greek, it makes up one sentence. Then, after that short introduction,

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Paul launches into a great praise of God. One incredibly long sentence that goes, in Greek, believe it or not, the whole sentence goes from verses 3 to verse 14.

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All that is one incredibly long sentence. So, as most of our passage today.

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Now, the core of that sentence, the verb and the subject, is contained in the first phrase of verse.

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It is simply, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay? Simple idea.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, the simple statement, that simple statement unfolds after that into this incredibly complex compound sentence.

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And the statement is that God himself is blessed.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is blessed. Now, what does that mean?

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When we speak of, you know, if someone around, one of you said, hey, if I ask how you're doing, say, I'm blessed.

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It usually means, unless you're faking it, please don't do that. Usually means things are going well. There's good things going to happen in my life, and you're giving

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God credit for that by saying you're blessed, and that's a good thing to say. We speak of someone being blessed. You know, they've received special favor from God.

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God has done something gracious for them, something that makes them happy. It's what it means to be blessed. You may be blessed to have a good job.

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You may be blessed to have a family that can help look after the kids. Blessed to be in good health. Blessed that your business is doing well.

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I hope all of you have those blessings. All these things make life easier for you, right? Your business is doing well.

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You have more money. You don't have to worry too much about where your food's going to come from. You're happy. There are benefits.

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And so, for us people, it's easy to know what it means to be blessed. But what does it mean for God to be blessed?

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Blessed be the God. I believe it means that God has blessed himself, right?

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Hebrews tells us, if you're blessed by someone superior to you, there's no one superior to God, so only God can bless himself.

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And God has blessed himself by giving himself what makes him happy, what is a pleasure to him.

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He has benefited himself. God has looked at the world and said, what's in it for me?

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And then done in the world what gives him pleasure.

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All of us, I would say that that's debasing God. Surely, God is not selfish.

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You see, some, they have this assumption that the ideal is this selflessness.

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And so, the goal then is to be selfless. And since God is perfect, God must be perfectly selfless.

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That's what many people just assume. If I hadn't thought about it, that's what they assume. Sometimes, Jesus is presented that way by some liberal theologians, even called the man for others, that Jesus never thought about himself, always just about other people.

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And that's why they really can't understand that strange story about a woman pouring very expensive perfume on Jesus' feet in the days prior to his crucifixion.

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Why all this expense, this luxury? You know, why not sell it and give it to the poor, for others, right?

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It's a waste. Isn't that what the selfless would say? I mean, like Judas, of course, he was a very selfless, wasn't he?

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And there's a lovely Christian song. I like the tune. I like most of the rhythm of it and many of the words.

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Been around for about 15, 20 years. I don't know exactly how long. It has some wonderful words. I once tried to rewrite part of it.

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I couldn't make it work. Because I wanted to salvage the rest of it. Part of it I wanted to rewrite is, like a rose trampled on the ground, you took the fall and thought of me above all.

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No, he didn't, songwriter. I want to shout at the man who wrote that song. He wasn't thinking of you above all.

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He thought of the glory of God. He was thinking of blessing God, giving God, the

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Father, pleasure. He said so himself. Jesus did at the Garden of Gethsemane. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

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He was doing what he did for the glory of God. That's why the woman wasn't wasting the perfume on Jesus' feet.

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It's about the glory of God. His mission above all was to glorify

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God. Now, does that make God selfish then? Maybe.

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But you have to understand, God is the only being in the universe who can be selfish without sin.

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You know, think about it. The first and greatest command is to love the Lord with all your heart, you know, with all that you are, above all others.

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That's the greatest command, love the Lord above all others. Now, if we love anything above him, we are idolaters.

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And God keeps his own first command, right? Does he break his own first command?

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No. He loves himself above all. If he loved us, and the songwriter needs to understand this, if he loved us above himself, he would be an idolater.

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He would be making us above him. That's idolatry. And so when God asked himself, what's in it for me?

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He's not being selfish. Or if he is, at least it's a pure selfishness. He's loving himself.

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He can do that for him. He's the only one who can say that perfectly. He may say that when you ask him for something in prayer, for healing, maybe for peace in the family, for more money.

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God, give me more money, a better job, a better relationship, more church members is when

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I sometimes ask. And he hears that, and he says to himself, I'm making it up, but something like it anyway, what's in it for me?

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And he does that with perfection, seeking his own blessing. How is

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God blessed? In your health, in you having good relationships, and a peaceful family, more cash, a bigger church.

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That's why, above all, we should be willing to pray, not my will, but yours be done.

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You know, we're saying to God, glorify yourself. This is what I want, but most of all, we want your glory.

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Do what blesses you. Now, this mind -blowingly complicated 12 -verse sentence is translated and edited to five sentences and two paragraphs in the

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ESV. If you're wondering why I said there's one sentence, and you read it, hey, there's several sentences here. No, but let's, to make it comprehensible to us kind of dumb modern people, in English, it was edited that way.

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But in Greek, it's only one sentence from verses 3 to 14, and it unfolds from that simple statement, blessed be the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is, God himself is in a state of joy, of receiving benefits, of happiness, of fulfillment, not frustration or desperation, as though he's in need of something from us or from something that he's just begging us for, and he can't get it.

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He is the satisfied, joyous God, and we find our satisfaction in him.

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You know, Psalm 103 begins, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name, bless the

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Lord, O my soul, and wish to be damned for the glory of God?

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No, forget not all his benefits. All right, here,

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Paul tells us that God is blessed, and he's saying, here are his benefits, at least seven of them here.

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Well, first, the satisfied, joyous God satisfies and makes us joyous, right?

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Blessed means satisfied, joyous, blessed be the God and Father of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed, satisfied, joyous God, gives us satisfaction and joy.

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He has blessed us, second half of verse three, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in, it says in the heavenly places, in Christ, that is, you know, think about it, every spiritual blessing means that there is not one spiritual thing, at least not a good thing, that we lack from God, and so we don't need to go looking for spiritual blessings elsewhere, in other religions and whatever, and maybe in horoscopes and lucky charms and feng shui and ancestors and power words, this kind of thing people do, and he's done so in the heavenly places, where it's safe and secure.

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Thieves do not break in and steal in heaven. He's done it in Christ, in what Christ did when he was glorified on the cross and in the resurrection, that he is the sole source of our blessings, and so he is the only one that we go to for them.

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Now, think what this says about God, the only being who can be selfish without sin, right?

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I mean, he can be selfish without sin, so he could just say, hey, what's in it for me? I'm gonna just get all, you're gonna make people worship you, me, and I'm gonna torture you just for fun.

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But this is showing us God is blessed, he is satisfied, joyous, happy, because he blesses us.

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Blessing us blesses him. Well, second, he is blessed because he chooses us.

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Choosing us makes him happy and satisfied. In verse four, he blesses us with every spiritual blessing as, notice the connection, that is in this way, by choosing us.

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And he chooses us, it says, in him. That is in Christ, another way of saying that, in Christ.

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This phrase is in Christ, in him, occurs over and over again in this great statement.

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It is saying that our blessings, which bless God, remember, that's what it's all about.

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It's about making God happy. How are you gonna make God happy? Well, he makes himself happy by making us happy. But they were accomplished in what

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Jesus did. Not in what we do, you know, in our religion or in our morality or even in our choosing.

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It is saying in verse four, God's choice of us was made in him. That what

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Jesus did was for the saints. That is for the believers. Not because he was thinking of us above all, but because he was thinking of the

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Father's glory and the Father was seeking to bless himself. And he blesses himself by blessing us.

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He makes himself happy by making us happy. Making us happy makes him happy.

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And he wants to make himself happy by making people who don't think first of how to make themselves happy.

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And God made himself, made his choice for us for Christ to die for us and be raised to life for us.

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In the middle of verse four, he made that choice. It's for us. Notice the middle of verse four, before the foundation of the world.

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That's when he made it. Now, before the universe was even created, before Genesis 1 -1,

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God made his choice for us. And he chose us. Notice it says there, quote, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

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It was never planned to be what is often presented to be today, this kind of false gospel of antinomianism, this easy believism that you say a confession and then it doesn't matter how you live for forgiveness that doesn't transform.

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It's as if it's a choice that makes no change. To many people today, confused people, the gospel is the choice that we make, right?

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The choice is all ours, depends on us. A choice to believe a few doctrines.

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And even if that choice makes no change, we're eternally secure, they say. That's the way it's presented by some people.

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The choice is ours and change is not the point, they say. But here,

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Paul shows us that first, the choice is God's and change is the point.

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God chose us that we should be holy and blameless before him.

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God chooses, we change. But you could say, you know, it's blameless.

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Holy, okay, I can maybe start being holy, it can be set apart. Blameless, too late for that.

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Sorry, you know, it's already got stuff to blame. Can't be blameless now, right? You can find things,

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I got blemishes, you can find them. If you look close enough. For some of us, you don't have to look very far. But that's where it's important to understand that we were chosen in him, in Christ.

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He sees us clothed with Christ, who is blameless for us.

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And so because we are in him, our blemishes are covered up by him.

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And we appear blameless, that is with no visible blemishes, to him.

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The third thing, third thing he did for us, beginning at the end of verse four, into verse five, was that he predestined us.

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He determined our destiny, that's what it means, predestined. Determined our destiny as children of God.

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It's predestined for a particular thing, to be children of God here. It wasn't as though that when we were born, you know, there was ever any doubt whether we'd be sons and daughters of God.

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Somehow it hung in the balance. You know, whether, it all depended on whether that preacher would communicate to us,

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Sunday school teacher would say the right words, or we'd understand the message, or whether we were born into a

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Christian family and were around it all the time, or whether we went to the right church, or read the right book, you know, or we just were in that right situation with that right person and all that.

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You know, it all hangs in the balance. The way some people's view it, they think it's so tenuous. Just all depends on a few things, and your eternal destiny is based on whether you're in a good mood that day, listening carefully.

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The fate of God's children doesn't depend on coincidences, or just environment, or chance, or, you know, being lucky, or even the power of persuasion.

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It is based on God's predestining his sons and daughters. Why does he do it?

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Why does he predestine? Is he some kind of control freak? Doesn't want to allow anything up to chance?

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Can't stand freedom? Gotta predestine everything, gotta be just so. Is that it, all it's about? No, he says, this is why the sentence begins at the end of verse four, he predestines us in love.

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In love, he predestined us. He had to do it in love. That's what motivated him to do it, because he chose to love us, and then he chose us.

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If he didn't do that, we wouldn't choose him. He chose to love some people, make them his children, and he then ensures, because it's predestination, it means he ensures that it will happen.

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He does it through Jesus Christ, through what he did for us, and that happens according to, literally in verse five.

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Notice that, not our will. Yes, our will is involved, eventually, but the predestining doesn't happen, it doesn't say here, according to our will, right?

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As a result of our will, that's not what it was depended on. Our will, our choice of him, is a result of his choice of us.

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We freely chose him because he freely chose us.

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We love, as John says, because he first loved us. Predestination happens according to, literally, the good pleasure, that's the word there in Greek, literally, the good pleasure of God, verse five.

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When he, and he, so think of it this way, this is, I'm just, I'm a little poetic license here, but when in eternity past, he was making his list of his children, he did it with joy, it's good pleasure.

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To use physical kind of language, he had a smile on his face, this is a happy time, these are the people

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I'm gonna get. It gave God pleasure to predestine, to adopt you as his son or daughter.

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That's what was in it for him, it's just good fun, saving some people. Why did

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God predestine you to be one of his children? Because he wanted to, he enjoyed doing it, and that produces in us, in verse six, for us, on our side, praise of his glorious grace.

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The doctrine of predestination is not supposed to produce debates and lectures and dissertations and just feeling superior to people who don't believe it, it's supposed to produce praise, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that predestined a wretch like me.

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And how did we get that amazing, what he calls glorious grace?

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Because we made the right choice, we did the right thing. That's not how you get grace, that's works, that depends on us, if it depends on us, it's works.

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He tells us at the end of verse six, the ESV says that he blessed us, but literally, it says in Greek there, that he graced us with grace.

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That's what it says in verse six, is the verb there, translated in ESV as blessed, is actually,

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I don't know how you translate it as graced, it's the verbal form, the verb form of the word grace.

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So, you know, in other words, being to give graciously, to grace, in other words, you can translate it to the praise of his glorious grace, which he graced us with.

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How do you get grace? You get grace by grace, and that grace comes to us, again, in the beloved, the one the father said, this is my beloved son.

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Not only did we get grace in Christ, next thing, this is the fourth blessing, get my fingers right, the fourth blessing that God gives us to himself, redemption is the fourth one.

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It means to buy back, to purchase out of. God has bought his children out of the penalty, the condemnation, the penalty, and the power and the presence of sin.

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Through what his beloved son did, especially, he says here, especially his blood.

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Without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin. That's the lesson of all those Old Testament sacrifices, with every animal they offered, they were saying, my sin deserves death.

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It deserves the shedding of my blood. But it also says in the sacrifices, someone else can do it for me.

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The Lord will supply the sacrifice. Abraham told Isaac, as he was leading up the mountain, and he did, the beloved, there's the sacrifice.

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We crossed over the boundary, and that sacrifice covers our trespasses.

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He says that his blood provides, in verse seven, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

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That is, we broke God's law, we crossed over the boundary of what God had laid out. Trespasses, there's no trespassing.

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We crossed over, we're guilty, but his blood provides forgiveness for that. God's love supplied the sacrifice to meet the demand of his holiness.

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That's how we get forgiveness. We need to understand that. It's not like many people think, our forgiveness comes just because God kind of decides to let some things slide.

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Okay, if I hold you all to that, you're all going to hell, so I'll let it slide. It's not how it works.

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Blood had to be spilled, and God supplied the blood so that we could have forgiveness.

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And why did he do it? What was in it for him? His good pleasure. And we have forgiveness according to, we have that forgiveness, he says, according to the riches of his grace.

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That's how much forgiveness we get, about proportionate to how much grace he has.

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According to means, in proportion to, the amount of forgiveness we get is in proportion to the amount of grace that he has.

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Now, if you got paid, if you got paid in proportion to the amount of money that I have, you'd be pretty poor.

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You wouldn't, not be getting paid very much. Maybe, though, if you got paid, now that sounds much better, in proportion to how much money

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Bill Gates has, that was sort of your standard of payment,

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Bill Gates' salary. You're getting a lot. You're getting wealthy. Now, getting forgiveness according to God's grace, according to how much grace that he has is getting a lot of forgiveness.

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All the forgiveness you will ever need because he is rich in grace,

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Paul says. Just in case we didn't know that, he is rich in grace. And he, look at these words

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Paul is choosing over and over again. In verse eight, he lavishes, he's rich in it, and he lavishes it on us, that grace on us.

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And imagine, you've been chosen before the universe was created, predestined to be a child of God so that you can, so that he,

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God, can grace you with grace lavishly. And what's in it for God?

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What does he get out of it? His good pleasure, that's what it says.

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That's what God likes to do. It's for enjoyment. That's what he wants to do.

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Next, fifth, God is blessed by making known to us the mystery of his will, in verse nine.

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That is, he likes to enlighten his people, showing them, he wants to show them that they are his sons and daughters.

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And that's why he sends his spirit to us, the spirit of adoption, he talks about that in Romans.

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Adopted spirit comes to us and we cry, Abba, Father. That's what happens when we first pray to the

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Lord in faith. We seek him in love, truly confessing that we believe in Jesus.

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It's not that by doing that, that's what many people's conception, they think. They believe these doctrines, they say these prayer, and by doing that, they turned on, like you might turn on a light or an oven or something like that,

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TV, they turned on God's grace. You know, with our knowledge and our acceptance, our prayer.

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That's not the way it works, it's the other way around. God turned us on, he enlightens us.

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He comes with his grace and turns us on so that we have enlightenment, so that, aha, we see things we didn't see before.

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He turns the light on in our heart. And he says he does that in all wisdom and insight.

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He gives us wisdom and insight, things we didn't really know or really believe before.

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He shares that revelation with us. That's what happens when you get saved. Some people think they did it, but what really happened was that they became aware of what

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God did. He made known to them, he revealed to you the mystery that was hidden in the past.

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You know, God has his list, right? Who's his? It's a mystery to us and maybe it's a mystery that our name is on it until he reveals himself to us.

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The truth that's hidden about who you are, about what you should do with your life, that Jesus is

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Lord, that he is your Lord. Maybe you thought that you were your own person, that you should always live for yourself.

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Always asking those five key words, what's in it for me? Then you saw, really saw, that there is someone higher and greater to live for.

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You got wisdom and insight. You finally saw the mystery.

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I'm a child of God. I should live for glorifying God and by that I will be enjoying him forever.

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That's my joy, that's my pleasure. That's the wisdom you were given. And so we didn't turn on God's grace by our knowledge, by our acceptance or by our prayer.

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We got knowledge, God revealed himself to us, revelation, because of grace, and God did that in the second half of verse nine, according to, why?

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His good pleasure. The ESV, now if you look at the ESV there, it kind of drains the joy out of that word.

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It just translates it as purpose. Which, you know, it has this purpose to it, yeah. But in Greek, again, literally it means good pleasure.

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God enjoys making himself known. And he makes himself known, not through our speculation or philosophy or other religions or what we think is reasonable, but through Christ.

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Through Jesus, he reveals his purpose for us. And not just for us individually, but in verse 10, for the whole universe.

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Here God has a plan, he has a plan for you, and he has a plan like you might have a plan how to run a house.

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Lately I've been very confused, I think all of us are, our family have, because we're not in our house, and we don't have our things, we don't know where anything is, our plan is totally disrupted.

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But God has his plan, and it's never disrupted. The universe is God's house, heaven and earth, physical and spiritual, and the end result of God's plan shows us that it is for God.

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Christ will be the head of all things. The word in verse 10 translated unite literally means to head up.

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Christ will head up everything, everything will be united because it'll have one head. God's plan, the mystery that he is making known now to people as he reveals himself to them, is that he is heading up everything, including you.

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He may have made that known to you at one time in the past, you know, revealing to you, maybe for a while you were living just for yourself, with a what's in it for me kind of attitude, and he reveals himself, and suddenly you say,

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I wanna live that plan, God's plan, instead of my own. I wanna let him head up my life.

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Maybe he reveals himself to you, and you realize, you know, like in the Godfather, he's making an offer to you, you can't refuse.

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The benefits are so great, the penalty is so horrible if you reject it, but mostly, overwhelmingly, you saw what was in it for you that is so good, that is so lavish and blessed.

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You want to make Jesus your head. God is right now revealing that plan, person by person, but eventually to every one of his people, and eventually heading up, and so uniting all things under King Jesus.

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That's going on right now. It's ironic, we didn't plan this, but Psalm 2 talks about that too.

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God has crowned his king, and he will destroy every opposition eventually.

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That plan of having Jesus heading up more and more people of the world, as 1 Corinthians 15 puts it, he must reign until he's put all his enemies under his feet, and that's what we seek to do, really, in evangelism, in Jim Jr.,

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in Jim, and sharing maybe with our family members or with our friends, to have, for us to have a share in God's good pleasure in seeing

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Jesus head up more and more of the universe, one person at a time.

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What's in it for you? Good pleasure. The single sentence continues into what in English is the second paragraph.

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In him, in Christ, the beloved son, we bless God, that is, we make God happy, satisfied, by getting an inheritance.

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Inheriting has to be the easiest way to get something. I can't think of an easier way to get something than inheriting.

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You don't have to work for it. You don't have to, you know, like a lottery, you don't even have to buy the lottery ticket.

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You don't have to hope, you know, whatever, you don't have to do anything. It's just someone you are related to, got it, and they die, and I guess that's tragic for you if you love them, but you get the inheritance from them.

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That's how you get inheritance, right? Just falls into your hands. Now here we are related to God because God, before the world began, chose to adopt us as his children, and then

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Jesus died, leaving us an inheritance of a right relationship with the

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Father. But someone said, well, what if we made the wrong choices? What if we don't go to the right church, or don't pay attention when the preacher is telling us the gospel?

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I mean, after all, it's daylight savings time, we lost an hour of sleep, it's hard to stay awake. What if you're born in a country where less than 2 % of the population is

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Christian, or in a town or family where everyone else is Buddhist or atheist?

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How are we gonna get the inheritance then, how? Won't God be disappointed? Won't he be no longer blessed, happy, satisfied then?

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Well, I suppose that would be the case if our salvation, our inheriting life, if it depended on us, on our choices, on our prayers, on our opportunities, or on our religion.

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But notice in verse 11, he says we get this inheritance because, again, here's this word some people find very traumatic and scary, but there it is again, we are predestined.

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And in case there is any doubt as to what that means, kind of describes it for us, he tells us that we're predestined according to the purpose of him who works out all things according to the counsel of his will.

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Now that doesn't necessarily say that all things are his perfect will, but it does say that for God's people, those that he has determined to give his inheritance to,

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God will work in every situation, every event, you know, according to the purpose of him who works, works all things according to the counsel of his will.

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It's a lot like Romans 8, 28, right? God works everything for good for those who love him. Same idea here, that God will work in every situation for his people, for those who love him, every event, whether good or bad, tragedy or trauma or triumph, to get that inheritance to his children.

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You can be born where only 2 % of the population are Christians, no one in your extended family and the father will find you.

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You can go to church your whole childhood, like me, and not pay attention to a word. And when he wants to, he can get to you through a book you pick up in a public school library.

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If you are one of his children, he will work through anything and everything to get his inheritance to you.

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He works all things according to the counsel of his will, according to his good pleasure.

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He'll overcome it all and look back and think, that was fun, according to his good pleasure.

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And our response in verse 12, praise his glory. Bless the

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Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits. And finally, the seventh way that God blesses himself by blessing us is that he seals us with the

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Holy Spirit. In verse 13, again, in Christ, in what Jesus did for us in his perfect life, for his death, for our sins, for his rising from the dead, we were sealed with the

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Holy Spirit. When that happens, you know, and here it says, not talking about some theology in ages past, something that's spiritual, some kind of theological idea, some abstract thing, but an actual event in our lives, he says, quote, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of Christ.

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We heard the gospel about Jesus, the Father revealed himself to us through it, and we believed, and the

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Father then gave us the Holy Spirit. So all three persons of the

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Trinity are involved. And to be sealed is to be protected.

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Like in their day, they would seal a letter with wax in a signet ring, sealed, so you could tell if someone else opened it up and fooled with it.

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It was sealed, protected. Or maybe you could, another example, in our day, maybe we might seal vegetables and fruit, maybe in a mason jar, seal it so it doesn't spoil.

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God seals every one of his children so that not one of them spoils, not one of them is lost.

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Everyone he has blessed and chosen and predestined and redeemed,

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God has revealed himself to them. He has given them their inheritance. Everyone is kept all the way until the end, sealed with the

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Holy Spirit who won't let them go bad. And the Holy Spirit is also, he says, the guarantee.

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Notice that near the end, verse 13 and 14, the guarantee of the whole inheritance.

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We haven't got it all yet, it's coming, but the Holy Spirit is that guarantee, that foretaste of what

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God has prepared for those who love him. Eventually, you will inherit a new heaven and a new earth, perfection in every way.

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Until then, you have the Holy Spirit in your heart. Now, your guarantee is that you have a new heaven, a new earth coming, now you have a new heart with the

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Holy Spirit living in you. What's in it for you?

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You have God himself protecting you, bequeathing to you, speaking to you, buying you out of sin and hell.

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He's predestining you, he's choosing you, he's blessing you by giving you the same good pleasure that he has perfectly.

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So, you know, when you say glorify God and someone asks, hey, well, what's in it for me?

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Everything, everything good. Let's come to him now in prayer.

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Father, we thank you for the richness of your grace that you have lavished on us, the inheritance, the blessings, the

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Holy Spirit who is a foretaste of the new heaven and the new earth that you have for us.

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We thank you for all that you've done for us. Lord, so help us now, in all our life, to glorify you and to enjoy you because you've given us so much to enjoy.