God Is Not Cold (Ephesians 1)

Good to be here with you and open the Word of God together. So, turn to the first chapter of Ephesians this morning, Ephesians chapter one, and let us pray to begin. Our Father, our time has been rich already as we have sung to one another the great salvation truths contained in the Scriptures.

We have been reminded of the Reformation, that firestorm that Martin Luther launched inadvertently, by which you recovered the gospel in which we now stand. We heard the Word of God read and come face to face with your glory therein and how grateful we are.

We do now pray, our Father, that you would give us attentive hearts listening ears, help us to see, help us to hear, help us to believe, and to help us to do. We pray for the glory of Christ. Amen. Cold, dark, and lifeless for thousands of years, that is how we have regarded the world's deep oceans.

In fact, it wasn't until 1960 that we were even able to send a bathyscaphe down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. That is the deepest spot on this planet. It's almost seven miles deep, deep enough to submerge Mount Everest and have more than a mile of ocean above its height.

That is the highest peak. 95 of the oceans of this planet remain unexplored. In that sense, it is the final and great frontier. And most of those oceans are what is considered the deep ocean. The deep ocean.

What exactly is this deep ocean? Well, the first 600 feet are called the open ocean, and that is where the majority of the life that we know of lives. It is there that the light penetrates. From 600 to 3 ,000 feet of depth is known as the twilight zone.

The further down you go, the less and less light penetrates until at about 3 ,000 feet you encounter total darkness. And from there, the rest of the way down, the oceans are completely devoid of light.

You have now reached the deep ocean. Down there, the temperatures constantly stay near freezing. A pressure at these depths ranges from 40 to over 110 times the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere. There at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the water pressure is the equivalent of 50 jumbo jets piled on top of you.

Just to give you an idea. So why am I telling you about the deep ocean other than it interests me? The reason is because the impression that the deep ocean is cold, dark, and lifeless in many ways illustrates how some people view God.

And in particular, his sovereignty. In particular, his sovereignty. The first chapter of the book of Ephesians that was read for us is densely packed with spiritually and intellectually challenging concepts.

In verse 4, we encounter the doctrine of election, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him. In chapter 5, we encounter Paul's statements about predestination and adoption where he says in love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will.

Verses 9 and 10, we encounter God's plan for the ages where he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his kind intention which he purposed in him that is in Christ with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

Three times in this chapter, we see the refrain to the praise of his glory, right? Verse 6, to the praise of his glory. Verse 12, to the praise of his glory. Verse 14, to the praise of his glory. And yet, and yet, some folks read and hear about the sovereignty of God in salvation and they recoil from it.

They see it as a hateful doctrine that makes God out to be a powerful and merciless tyrant. For others, they become convinced from the scriptures that these doctrines are indeed true, but they view them a little like being told to eat your vegetables.

You know it's good for you, but you just assume not, right? You just assume not. Others wield these great doctrines like a spiritual war club, bludgeoning every believer into either submission or flight.

It seems with them that every conversation ultimately ends back on the five points of Calvinism. I want to avoid all of that. I want to avoid all of that with you this morning by recognizing that any true understanding of God's sovereignty is built upon Paul's ascription of praise to God the Father in verse 3.

Let your eyes go there. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. That's our text for this morning. In particular, as we begin to probe this text, I want to draw out for you three thrilling and heartwarming realities, three thrilling and heartwarming realities that are inherent in this designation as God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, we don't have time to deeply explore all of them. I can only acquaint you with these in one sermon, so let me just introduce you to it and recommend to you that you spend some time in further reflection and study yourself and see if these things are not so.

So, here they are. The first thrilling, heartwarming reality here is that God is essentially a Father. That God is essentially a Father. The God of the Bible is triune. He is one God eternally existing in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.

This reality is essential to the Christian faith because it is essential to the very nature and identity of the one true God. We serve a triune God. And when we speak about God, it is common to identify him as both the creator and ruler of the universe.

That's a common way to refer to him. But, beloved, to think of him exclusively or even primarily in these terms does injustice to his person. God is more than creator and ruler of the universe, much more.

Does that statement strike you? Does it disquiet you? Michael Reeves, in his wonderful little book that I would heartily commend to you called Delighting in the Trinity, he writes the following. I quote, If God's very identity is to be the creator, then he needs a creation to rule in order to be who he is.

Let me say it again. If God's very identity is to be the creator, then he needs a creation to rule in order to be who he is. In other words, that would make God dependent upon his creation for his own existence.

And that, my friends, is not our God. It is not our God. It is definitely not the God of the scriptures. Is God the creator of the universe? Absolutely. That is absolutely true. But it is not who he is fundamentally and essentially.

Fundamentally and essentially. God is not essentially the creator, nor is his identity as the ruler and the lawgiver his essential identity. Because if that were true, then my problem would be that I have broken his rules.

I have broken his rules. And if my fundamental problem is that I have broken God's rules, I have broken his law, if that is my fundamental problem, then the only salvation he can offer me is to treat me as if I had kept those rules, as if I had kept that law.

In other words, my relation with him would be a little different from that of a police officer who pulls me over for speeding and then decides to let me off without writing a ticket. Would I be grateful?

You bet. But I would not love him. I would not love him. And if I cannot truly love God simply as the ruler, then that means I can never keep his first commandment, which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

He's got to be more. He is more than creator. He is more than ruler. He is more than law giver. So who is he? Who is our God? And the answer is bound up in the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

If Jesus is the Son, and he is, then obviously he has a father. Then obviously he has a father. And it is this that is the very essence of our God. It is that he is a father. In fact, this is the way Jesus revealed him.

In John 14, 6, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. This notion, by the way, of God as the Father is the repeated testimony of Scripture. We don't have to wait till we get to the first chapter of Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus to go, pow, God's a father.

It's actually the uniform testimony of Scripture. Turn with me, if you will. Let me just show you this quickly. In Exodus chapter 4, verse 22, where we see there that the Lord calls Israel his firstborn son, his firstborn son, Exodus 4, 22.

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn, my firstborn. In Deuteronomy chapter 1 and verse 31, God tells us that he carries his people as a father carries his son.

Deuteronomy 1 and 31. And in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you just as a man carries his son in all the way which you walked until you came to this place. He disciplines them as a father disciplines his son.

Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 5. Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son, his son. God has compassion on his people like a father on his son.

Psalm 103 and verse 13, where David writes, just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. The repeated refrain of the gospels is Jesus calling God his father, calling God his father.

And Paul and Peter themselves refer to God as the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans chapter 15 and verse 6. Romans 15 6. So with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

First Peter 1 13. We have Peter's words. First Peter 1 3. I'm sorry. First Peter 1 3. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then one more for you.

Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 7. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 7. Where there we are told that God treats us as believers, as sons, when he disciplines us, right? 12 7. It is for discipline that you endure.

God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? It is the testimony of scripture that God is essentially a father. And since God is before all things a father and not primarily creator or ruler, then all his ways are beautifully fatherly.

All his ways are beautifully fatherly. In other words, all that God does, he does as a father. That is who he is. That is who he is. What does that mean? Well, among many things it means that even an orphan, even an orphan can know and understand fatherhood by coming to know God.

He is the pattern for which the human father is the illustration. He's the pattern. The human father is the illustration. And the beauty and the glory of all this is that even if you had a less than ideal human father, if that was your experience, then all is not lost.

You can still know and have everything you want, you need to understand what it means to have and to be a father by studying the pattern, not the illustration. The pattern, not the illustration. God is essentially a father.

Second, God the father eternally loves God the son. God the father eternally loves God the son. Question for you, what was God doing before the creation of the world? What was God doing before the creation of the world?

Sitting around, waiting? No, he was eternally loving the son, eternally loving the son. John 17 24, where Jesus prays, Father, you loved me before the foundation of the world. What was God doing before he created this world?

He was loving his son, loving his son. Now, the implications of that, of the eternal love of the father for the son are immense, and they are thrilling. They are thrilling. It explains why God created humanity.

It explains why God created humanity. Why did he do it? He did it to share and reflect his love, to share and reflect his love. Not like Allah, where the Muslim is told that Allah created in order to create servants or worshippers.

No, the true God created because love is always outgoing, always sharing. In Genesis 1 26, we are told, and God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. We are made in the likeness of God and thus are able to love ourselves.

It explains why God redeems humanity. It explains why he redeems us. Why? It is out of an overflow of his love. John 3 16, for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever shall believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

In Ephesians, back to Ephesians 1, so we don't depart from this completely. In verses 4 and 5, we see it. In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.

1 John 4 10, in this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Or Romans chapter 8 and verse 29, Romans 8 29 and following, for those whom he foreknew he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren.

And these whom he predestined he also called, and these whom he called he also justified, and these whom he justified he also called. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

As your eyes drop down to verse 37, but in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. Why did God create us? He created us out of the overflow of his love. It is also, by the way, the motivation for us to love others made in his image.

It is our motivation. When we get our arms around God's immense love for us, then it is close out in our love for others. Matthew chapter 22, Matthew 22 verse 37, and he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

And this is the great and foremost commandment. Second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. They are built upon the love of God, his love for you being primary and our love for him and others, the necessary derivative of it.

We even see it in earlier in Matthew chapter five there in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew five, verse 43, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

It motivates us. A right understanding of God's love motivates us to love others. It is the love of God that explains and illustrates the giving nature of true love. 1 John 3 .16, 1 John 3 .16, we know love by this, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

And that great chapter in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse Paul speaks of the giving nature of love itself. 1 Corinthians 13, and beginning in verse four, love is patient. Love is kind. It's not jealous.

Love does not brag, is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffer, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love is essentially outward looking, outward focused, life giving, if I can say it that way. Beloved God is many things. He is a creator. He is the creator. He is the ruler of the universe. But his fundamental identity is that of a loving father.

It is that of a loving father. And it's in thus, back to Ephesians chapter one, it is in that glorious reality of a loving father that these great doctrines of election and predestination enable us to revel in the love of God.

It is no longer a cold and sterile academic reality that God chose you. Instead, it forms the basis for us to offer him praise for the glory of his grace. Does it not? It is the love of God shared with us through our adoption and union with his son in which we experience the love of God.

God is essentially a father. God the father eternally loves God the son. Third, God the father is in eternal fellowship with God the son. God the father is in eternal fellowship with God the son. From all eternity, God the father has been loving and enjoying intimate fellowship within the Godhead from all of eternity.

First John, excuse me, John 1 .18. John 1 .18. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is at the father's side. He has explained him at the father's side, or in the bosom of the father.

Chapter 17 of John's gospel and verse 5. 17 .5. Now, father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was. Bring me home. Bring me home. Verse 23. I in them, you in me, that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that you send me and love them even as you have loved me.

In other words, as we experience the fellowship that God the father and God the son have enjoyed from all eternity, we begin to experience what it means to live the new life in Christ. It is through the overflow of that love that God created Adam and Eve.

Right? And he invited them into a loving fellowship with him. Genesis 3 .8. The Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the day, it says. God walked with them in the garden in the cool of the day.

That is a description of fellowship. It is fellowship. It is fellowship that existed, of course, before ruination. It was Adam's disobedience that shattered that fellowship. Shattered it. Remember, he sought to hide himself from God.

No longer did they walk in fellowship. Adam sought to hide from God. It was Adam's disobedience that shattered the fellowship. But God in his mercy instituted a sacrificial system whereby that relational damage could be partially and temporarily rolled back until the time would come when we could once again enjoy that unhindered fellowship.

That which God established for them would allow humanity to come near, but not too near. Near, but not too near. Exodus chapter 19. Exodus 19, beginning in verse 10. The Lord also said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments and let them be ready for the third day.

For on the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. You shall set bounds for the people all around saying, beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border of it.

For whoever touches the mountain shall surely die. No hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through. Whether beast or man, he shall not live. When the ram's horn sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.

It was a terrifying thing. And that was the state of humanity. The whole design of the temple system was that you could come close, but only so far. The Gentiles, you could come into the court of the Gentiles, but there's the wall that keeps you out.

Then there's the court of the women. The women can come a little closer, but not too far. Then the court of the men and the Jewish men can come closer still, but not too close. And then into the temple itself where the priesthood could go, but there's one part of the temple that's off limits, except for one man, one day a year for a finite time for a limited purpose.

And that for millennia is what the relationship was like. That's what it was like. And then in the fullness of time, right, God sent his beloved son into the world so that the world might experience the love and the intimacy between he and his father.

He tore down the middle wall of partition. The veil that separated them from the Holy of Holies was rent from top to bottom. It was thrown wide open. Fellowship again re-established. John chapter 17 and verse 3, this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

This is eternal life that they may know you, that they may know you. Now the knowledge spoken up here is not a download of intellectual information. It's speaking of intimacy. It's speaking of fellowship.

It's speaking of a shared life together, that which the father desires Jesus and his disciples to be joined to. Again, go to John 17 verse 24. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am so that they may see my glory, which you have given me for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Oh, righteous father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you and these have known that you sent me and I have made your name known to them and we'll make it known so that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.

Brought into fellowship with the living God. Brought into fellowship with the living God. What is the means by which this happens? It is our adoption as sons. That's what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 5, that we are predestined to adoption as sons of God in union with Christ.

And it is in that state as the adopted sons of God that we now enjoy the intimacy with God that Christ his son enjoys with him. Romans 8 15. You have received the spirit of adoption, Paul says, as sons by which we cry out what?

Abba, father. A term of intimacy. Abba, father. In Christ, we draw near to the father. Beyond that, incredible as that is, there is the practical realities of it that it is our fellowship with the father that provides the means and the motivation for our desire to avoid sin.

What gives us the motivation to avoid sin? What provides the means by which we avoid sin? Well, since sin is ultimately an attack on a relationship and destroys fellowship, it is as we understand our position in Christ and revel in the fellowship that is ours because of what he has done for us that we don't want sin any longer.

We're not satisfied to live like that, one who is estranged from God. We desire to live out the family identity. Beyond that, beloved, it is the fellowship with the father that we have in Christ that provides the basis for our fellowship with each other.

We look around the room, there are hundreds of us here. What brings us together? What holds us together? It is our fellowship established by Christ as he shares that which he and his father have long from eternity past shared, experienced, reveled in.

Jesus even left us a simple illustration of that. When we come to the communion table, the communion table, every time we eat at the Lord's table, we proclaim our fellowship with one another. We're in union with each other.

We're in fellowship with each other. All right. Big ideas. I get it. Hopefully you can be moved to think about this a little more. But let me see if I can drive it home for you a little bit here. Let me ask you a question.

What are your relationships like? What are your relationships like? The unbelievers gather for food, family, and fun. That's what unbelievers gather for, food, family, and fun. But as a follower of Christ, here's my question.

Is there anything distinctly Christian about your relationships here at KCC? Are your relationships here, can they be characterized as food, family, fun? Because if that's true, that's not fellowship.

It's not fellowship. As you consider your relationships here, think about this. As our heavenly Father is life-giving, do you have any relationships in which you give life to another person? Do you have any relationships in which you are the one who gives life to that person?

Spiritual life. Spiritual life. In what way does your love of the brethren display your likeness to Christ? Have you been transformed? Are you living out that identity? And third and finally, since fellowship is sharing life and word together, the very word itself means sharing, outside of your family, with whom do you have regular fellowship in this body?

With whom are you experiencing regular fellowship together? May God grant us His grace that we might think seriously on these things, that He would reveal the truth to us. Let's pray. Father, thank you.

Thank you that we call you Father. Thank you that the very fact that you are Father makes you life-giving. And as you shed your life abroad through your Son, and specifically with us through our union with Him, you draw us into the loving fellowship that you and He and your Spirit have enjoyed together since eternity past.

We are drawn up into that. We experienced something new, something transformational, something unexplainable, short of an understanding that it is you who have done this for us. Oh, may these great doctrines that we love so much evoke from our lips aspirations of praise and glory to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen and amen.