Chosen In Christ

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

Election as the First Spiritual Blessing in Ephesians 1

Yes, so our Bible is open to Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3. As you turn there, I'll introduce our subject this way. This afternoon we're continuing our study in Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. As we do, we're going to look at verses 3 and 4 together and devote ourselves for the lion's share of our time to discovering, to studying the spiritual blessing that is election, that doctrine of God's sovereign grace in predestining and effectually calling lost sinners to himself.

And so with that, let's read Ephesians chapter 1 and verses 3 and 4 together. Does anyone still hear that music? Perhaps PJ, maybe you can help us out. We're good.

That worked.

When in doubt, just pull the cable. Okay, now that I have your attention, Ephesians 1 verse 3. 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.

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. This is God's authoritative word to us today. And if you were here with us last week, you will recall that we opened our study in Ephesians by emphasizing the unsearchable riches that the Christian finds in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And over the next several weeks, as we study Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 to 14 especially, we're going to be doing a bit of a series within a series. And that is that we're going to look at, as Paul calls it, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places that the Christian has received.

And so in the weeks ahead, as we look at verses 3 through 14, we're going to consider the blessings of adoption, the blessings of redemption, of inheritance, the inheritance, and of the infilling of the Holy Spirit amongst other things.

But this week, as we approach verses 3 through 4 and begin this series within a series, as I'm calling it, we're going to find the first spiritual blessing that Paul lists. And that is the blessing of election.

Now if you know what election is, you know maybe already where I'm going to take us. That if ever there was any blessing that was treated more like a curse than a blessing, it is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, this doctrine of election, or as it's otherwise known as the doctrine of predestination.

Throughout the ages, Christians and non-Christians alike have spurned the idea that God chooses those whom He will save, apart from any foreseen merit in them, based on His own sovereign choice alone.

And we don't have to go very far into the history books to see how this battle has been waged between the sovereignty of God in salvation and the free will of man in salvation. If we were to go back just a few hundred years to the mid -1700s, we would find John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley, Christian brothers, I believe, truly.

But John Wesley in the mid -1700s declared this, he said, the doctrine of election is full of blasphemy. He said it represents God as worse than the devil, more false, more cruel, and more unjust. If we were to fast forward a few hundred years later to the early 1900s and find Albert Einstein somewhere in his laboratory or tweaking numbers on a chalkboard, what we would see is this, that Albert Einstein said that he refused to believe in a personal God.

And one of the principal reasons that he refused to believe in a personal God was because he could not reconcile God's sovereignty with God's judgment. He said that if the God of the Bible is truly sovereign, as the Bible says He is, and yet he judges people.

Is he not just entering into judgment on himself? And so instead, what he said is, I'm going to reject the sovereign God of the Bible. And he said instead that he would serve the God of Spinoza. That is a Dutch philosopher who said there is a God who is infinite, self-caused, eternal, but ultimately unknowable.

Now, even more recently, just in 2011, a man named Roger E. Olson wrote a book against Calvinism. It's actually an interesting book because Michael Horton, who is a man who believes in the doctrines of election, he wrote a book entitled For Calvinism, and they go together, they wrote each other's forewords.

But Roger E. Olson said this in his book. He said, a God whose salvation is absolutely unconditional and solely an act of God, so salvation is of God only. He writes, that God is a moral monster. Election has been rightly called one of the most misunderstood doctrines in all of the.

Scriptures.

It seems that people either love it beyond words, or once it's fully understood in their minds, they hate it with all the vehemence that they can muster up in themselves. And yet, in these opening words of Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3, the Apostle Paul holds this doctrine of election up as the first and the chief blessing among all of the spiritual blessings that God's people have received in Christ.

When we strip away all of the emotions, all of the commotion, when we hit the mute button on the voices of all the critics, and even our own internal skepticism, and take the Bible at face value, what we find is that the doctrine of God's predestining, unconditional election, is not only absolutely biblical, absolutely true, but it is absolutely foundational to a full, orbed understanding of all of the riches that we have in Jesus Christ.

And so today, as we study this passage, what I want to do, we're going to isolate verse 3 a little bit in order to gather some context, and then we're going to look very heavily at verse 4, at all the facets of this glorious doctrine of election, and see that God has given us this doctrine, this magnificent doctrine, not only for us to embrace, but for us to praise God for His glorious grace, that each of us would leave the back doors today with the thought of God's sovereignty at the forefront of our minds and with His praises on our lips that we serve and have been saved by a sovereign God.

So, isolating verse 3, I'm going to look at verse 3, it's a bit different from what we normally do, but I'm going to isolate verse 3, we're going to look at that together, and then the homiletical points, the outline of my sermon proper, really starts in verse 4.

So verse 3 says this, 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. Paul begins Ephesians 1 and verse 3 with a benediction of sorts.

In fact, it follows the pattern of what's been called a Hebrew Barakat, that is a Hebrew benediction that is offered up to God. That word benediction, when we stand together at the end of the service and issue the benediction, that means blessing.

And here, that's exactly what Paul has in mind, except instead of a blessing to the people, it is a blessing to God. And we can actually trace these Hebrew Barakats throughout our Bibles when we know what to.

Look for.

A Hebrew Barakat is consisting of two principal components, that there is, number one, a blessing offered to God. And we will see that in a moment as we look at some of these Hebrew benedictions. That it is the author of the book extolling God, praising God with all of his might.

And then the second component in that Hebrew Barakat is the basis for that blessing. Not only does the psalmist or the prophet or the apostle bless God, but then tells us why we are to bless God. So if we were to look through our Old and New Testaments, we would find these Hebrew benedictions all throughout.

I want to take us just to a couple so that we can see what Paul is doing here. In Psalm 66 and verse 20. If you want to turn there with me, you can. Psalm 66 and verse 20. It's helpful to see it for yourself.

The psalmist shares one of these Hebrew Barakats with us, where he says, Blessed be God. There's component number one. The blessing offered to God because, that's component number two, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love for me.

Similarly, in the New Testament, Peter, a Jewish writer. He included the Hebrew Barakat in 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 3. You can turn there and look at that with me as well. Just so that you can see the similarities.

There Peter says in 1 Peter 1 and 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy. See the blessing and the purpose, the basis. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

So Paul begins the meat and potatoes of this letter with this Hebrew Barakat. We saw this last week, didn't we? When he greeted the Ephesians, he said, Grace to you and peace. A combination of a Jewish and a Gentile greeting.

And now he does it again, only this time with a Hebrew benediction, but with a subtle but important alteration. He doesn't just say, Blessed be God, but he says, Blessed is God. Blessed be God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So a thoroughly Jewish and a thoroughly Christian benediction as he begins this letter. And what this is meant to do is for us as the readers, for those of us in our seats this afternoon studying this word, is that Paul is inviting us to join him in two things.

That we would join him in blessing and in praising God with all of our hearts, in offering up our own benediction, and we're to see why we are to offer up that benediction. And the number one reason why the Apostle Paul is inviting us, calling us to praise God with him, to magnify and extol God, is found in verse 4.

It is not because verse 4 tells us that we chose God before or during our earthly lives. We're not told that we are to bless God because we have absolute free moral agency to do as we please, irrespective of God's sovereignty.

But we are to offer up a blessing to God today and for the rest of our lives, for the rest of eternity. Because God the Father chose us in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world, freely and sovereignly and unconditionally.

On this verse, verse 3, John Calvin said that election is the foundation and the first cause of all blessing. And so for the remainder of our time, we're going to hone in on verse 4 and look at the many facets of this doctrine of election to the end that we would praise God at every point of the text.

We Are Chosen in Christ Before the Foundation of the World

And so, looking at the first truth that I want us to see in this passage at the beginning of verse 4 is this, and if you want to follow along in the insert in your bulletin you can. Number one, that we are chosen in Christ.

That we are chosen in Christ. In verse 4, Paul writes this, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Please hear me on this. And as you meditate on it, I know some of you are very, very, very familiar with this idea.

But even in the midst of your familiarity, as I say these words, think about their meaning and praise God, offer up your worship to God even now. That if you are in this room today and you go by the name Christian, that you are a Christian to the core of your being, meaning that you have experienced conviction of sin and you have seen Jesus Christ as the only Savior of the world and you have repented of your sin and believed on Him as that only Savior.

If Christ is your only hope, then this passage insists that you acknowledge that your salvation from beginning to end is entirely a work of God alone. This passage maintains that you are not a Christian because one day you decided to choose Christ.

Although there might be an element of truth there, but it's not principally because you decided to choose Christ, but because, praise be to God, God the Father chose you in Christ before the day that you were ever born.

Now, in the midst of all of the conflict and all the surrounding difficulties that orbit this doctrine, how can I possibly make such a confident assertion that you, Christian, are a Christian because God has chosen you?

I make this confident assertion not on the basis of the writings of Calvin and Luther, both of whom believed and taught this doctrine, but on the basis of the careful exposition of Scripture alone, and that we can drill into this text, this one verse in Ephesians chapter 1, and we can be convinced of it ourselves.

In verse 4, Paul tells us that God chose us. Now some have, and I'm sure you've conversed with people like this, they are our brothers and sisters in Christ, but some have tried to twist themselves into pretzels to explain this in a way that respects man's free moral agency.

But the fact of the matter is this, that what our Bible says, it means. This word chose. It would be interesting, I suppose controversial, if this word chose had a broad semantic range that could mean any number of things, and we have to narrow it down and look at the grammar in the original text to see exactly what the word chosen means.

But this word, in fact, is a very simple word that's used throughout the Bible, and it denotes exactly that, to choose, to pick out, to select. It would be like me coming home from the grocery store and saying, what did you get for lunch today?

I chose chicken. I could have chosen steak, but I chose this instead. It was a decision on my part. For those young men who are laughing, one day you'll understand. To pick out or select. Now to get around this fact, some have suggested that what God is speaking about is election to something other than salvation.

Those who oppose the doctrine of predestination have argued that God does not choose people for salvation, but He chooses them for a purpose, or He chooses a broader group, but never individuals. But this is a myopic view of election at best.

It's been rightly pointed out that there are, if we were to go through all the pages of there are three different types of election that we find in the Bible. Three different types. I like the way that John MacArthur parses them out.

He says, amongst the three different types of election, first we would see God's theocratic election of Israel, or you could call it national election. This is the fact that God has, if we go back, we can see it for ourselves that God chose the nation of Israel.

When the nation of Israel was not yet, when Abram was in Ur of the Chaldees, surrounded by a myriad of peoples and nations and languages and tribes and people groups, that God set His electing love, His national electing love on Abraham and on the nation of Israel that was to be.

In Deuteronomy 7, we see this for ourselves. In verse 6, it says, for you are a people holy to the Lord. We see the plural here. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

That it is true that there was a time when God chose a nation and He chose Israel. That is national election. But there's a second kind of election that we find in our Bibles, and that is vocational election, that God of His own sovereign choice, not only did He choose nations, but then He selected particular people who were to serve as priests and as prophets and as apostles.

We see this in Jeremiah 1, verse 5, where it says, before I formed you in the womb, He's talking to Jeremiah, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Now, those who oppose the doctrines of grace, God's sovereign election of individuals for salvation will perhaps agree with one or with both of these categories, that yes, God, they would say, Romans chapter 9, that is dealing with national election.

I would contend that it is not, but they would at least argue that there is such a thing as national election. And sometimes you might speak of the Apostle Paul walking on the road to Damascus and how he is saved and converted, and even there they would say, well, that is vocational election, that He selected Paul, and that's what we see there.

But there is a third kind of election, and this is the kind of election that Paul is dealing with. The third category we might call salvational election. That is that God, before time and space, set His electing love on individual men and women that He predestined to eternal life, and in His time, He has and will effectually call them to Himself, and not even one of them, not even one will be lost.

Now, this is most clearly seen in what is called the golden chain of redemption, and if we were to turn there together to Romans chapter 8 and verse 29, in the golden chain of redemption, we see that there are those who are predestined, and those who then are predestined are called, and that same group who is predestined and called is saved and will be saved, in that word glorified.

In Romans 8, 29, for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined, He also called.

And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. You see with me here that there are none here who are glorified, who will go into the presence of God, who are not first predestined and called and justified, nor are there those who are predestined or called, who are not then justified and glorified.

But that in this passage, through this golden chain of redemption, we see that election and salvation are inextricably linked. But there's more, if that isn't enough. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 13, Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica,.

But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits. As the firstfruits to what? As the firstfruits to be a nation. As the firstfruits to be prophets or priests or kings.

But God chose you as the firstfruit to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in truth. In fact, the principal way that election is used when we look at the whole corpus of Scripture is that it is used to refer to salvation, to eternal life, to reconciliation with the Father through Jesus Christ.

I once heard John Piper say this, that he was at a conference and was speaking with an Arminian scholar who said that, and as they were having a private conversation, not a public conversation, the Arminian scholar said, well, if you're just doing objective exegesis, then the doctrine of election has to be true.

If you're just looking at it objectively. But he said, but I will never believe it still. That even though he was looking at it objectively, that he understood the languages, he understood the grammar, he understood the cross-references, he understood the biblical, historical picture.

Even though he saw that election was true, he said, I will not believe it. My question to you is this, will you believe it? Will you be convinced that this is, in fact, biblical and true? And do you praise God for it?

We're going to develop further as we move along. The second truth that we encounter in verse 4, number 2, is that we are chosen unconditionally among those who are prepared to admit that God chooses people for salvation.

There are many who say that God chooses us based on his foreknowledge of our faith. Now this is going to get a bit clumsy probably, so pay attention for a second. That there is, that God chooses us because there is something meritorious in the individual that attracts God's love from eternity past.

So if you can picture this, before time and space, they would say, God was watching on the horizon of time for those who would believe in him. And when he saw that they would believe, he then chose them for salvation.

Jacob Arminius said something like this, that God does not base his choice on what will be, or sorry, he does not make what will be based on his choice, but that, oh, I'm going to abandon that one. It's just hard.

It's just hard. I had it in my notes and I thought, it's clumsy, I shouldn't even try to revisit it. But my friend, another friend, a good friend, a brother in Christ, these are brothers and sisters in Christ who hold to this.

And this is not so necessary that one cannot be saved if they do not hold to this. But along those lines, he said, from eternity past, God sees those who will believe in Christ. And on that basis, he chooses those who will choose him of their own free will.

And so they become elect because they have chosen him, rather than they believe in him because they are elect. But verse four tells us that God chose his people from before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy.

That God is not waiting for us to profess faith, that he is not looking to the horizon of time to see if we will believe, and then if we believe, he will elect us. But before the foundations of the world, before he spoke the sun or the moon or the stars or the earth or the water or you into existence, he chose you from before the foundation of.

The world.

John Calvin says this, why God has called us to enjoy the gospel, why he daily bestows upon us so many blessings, why he opens to us the gate of heaven, the answer will constantly be found in this principle, that he has chosen us before the foundation of the world.

The very time when the election took place proves it to be free, for what could we have deserved or what merit could we have possessed before the world was made? Absolutely nothing at all. Charles Hodge says, this grace was given to us before we existed, before the world began, and of course before we had done any good or evil.

It was therefore not for works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. If one aspect of the truth that God chose us before the foundation of the world is adapted to produce confidence, the other aspect is no less adapted to produce humility.

That God chooses us, not because we believe, but he chooses us that we may believe, that we may, that we would place our faith in Christ. But in this passage, there's more than just before the foundation of the world.

We see that they were chosen before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy. I like what Thomas Watson says in this. He says we are elected to holiness, not for holiness, that God did not look ahead into time and to see, ah, there is a germ of holiness by which I can then cling my election to.

But that we were totally unholy, totally unworthy of his electing love, totally unworthy of his choosing us, and yet nevertheless he chose us in himself that we might be holy and blameless before him.

But that isn't all. The storyline, the rest of scripture tells us again, and then again, and then again, that God does not choose us because he knows in advance that we will choose him. But his foreknowledge is his foreordination, that when he foreknows us, it's that he has set his foreknowing love, his foreordaining selection that is according to his own purposes and grace.

Romans chapter 9, we all know that one. This is Paul. He's anticipating contentions already as he writes this, that though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or evil, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger.

As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. When they were not yet born and had done neither good nor bad. Or one, I recall this particular verse, as I was struggling with the doctrines of election when my children were just little, we were memorizing together 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verses 8 and 9.

And it's interesting sometimes how you can memorize a verse and yet it doesn't connect one dot to the other. And so I'm wrestling with this idea that does God truly call us?

Does he choose us?

Does he save us of his own will? Or does he see our faith in advance? And I'm memorizing this verse with the kids and then one day, I'm just sitting there, I'm not sure if I was driving or I was at home, but I recited it in my mind and realized that's it.

2 Timothy 1 and verse 8 and 9. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony but our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. Here it is, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

All those who are Christians, all of us in this room who are Christians, we're Christians because God chose us before the foundation of the world to be Christians. And he didn't do it based on any merit, any faith, any inkling of hope in us, but based solely on his own purpose and grace.

And this is, let me assure you, this is the best news in all of the world. And why is that? Because if there was something in us that somehow had to be meritorious, that somehow had to attract God's love, that had to somehow attract his attention that he would choose us, I assure you we would all be damned.

But it is not at all dependent on us, but on the will of him who calls. I like what Spurgeon said, he said, this is tongue in cheek, but he said, it is a good thing that God chose me before I was born because he surely would not have afterwards.

And how many of us feel that way? Another Puritan writer, a few hundred years before Spurgeon, he said this, he said, election, having once pitched upon a man, will find him out and call him home. Where he's going with this is that God's saving power will save anybody.

Think about the people that you have stopped praying for, that you have stopped sharing the gospel with, the people where hope has been lost as far as you are concerned. God will be pleased, should it be his will to save, to call home even that man or woman, to call you home.

He says, this is John Aerosmith, the Puritan, it called Zacchaeus out of the accursed Jericho, Abram out of the idolatrous Ur of the Chaldees, Nicodemus and Paul from the college of the Pharisees, Christ's sworn enemies.

And I love this saying, this quote, and he says, whatever dunghills God's elect are hid, election will find them out and bring them home. If we sit here in this room, have we placed our faith in Christ consciously?

Yes.

Have we repented of our sins?

Yes.

Do we seek to know him and to please him?

Yes.

But the reason why we are here, the reason why we desire Christ, the reason why we worship the one true God, the reason why we meet to worship him together is because God has called us in spite of who we are, not because of who we could be.

C .H. Spurgeon says, whatever may be said about the doctrine of election, it is written in the word of God as with an iron pen, and there is no getting rid of it. To me, he says, it is one of the sweetest and most blessed truths in the whole of revelation, and those who are afraid of it are so because they do not understand it.

If they could but know that the Lord had chosen them, it would make their hearts dance with joy. And why should our hearts dance with joy at this doctrine? Because if God had never chosen us, we would have never chosen him.

We sang last week, my Lord, I did not choose you. And how many of us, those words just resonate in our hearts when we sing them, unless your grace had called me and taught my opening mind, the world would have enthralled me to heavenly glories blind.

My Lord, I did not choose you, for that could never be. My heart would still refuse you, had you not chosen me. Martin Lloyd-Jones said the real mystery, and we would be very well off if we framed our thinking, if we started at this point rather than where we often start.

He said the real mystery is not that everybody is not saved, but that anybody is saved at.

All.

This is the mystery. And for those of you who struggle with this doctrine, hear these words from the doctor, I think they're straight on. God owes nothing to anybody, but if he chooses to do something with what is his own, should our eye be evil because he is good?

God has a right to show mercy to whom he will. He has a right to have compassion upon whom he will, and there is no ground of complaint whatsoever. Some might say, I hate the doctrine of election. I hate the doctrine of predestination, and I will stand here and tell you that if election and predestination were not true of Scripture, there would be no Christians in the world today.

But because God calls people to himself, there are Christians today, including us. Praise be to God. But not only are we called, not only are we chosen, not only are we chosen unconditionally, but we are chosen to a purpose.

Chosen to Holiness and Blamelessness Before God

And we see that, the third truth I want to bring out here, that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy. We have been chosen to be holy. What a marvelous truth, that God has not chosen us solely for salvation.

Is that not enough to make your heart sing for eternity, that God has taken that which was unworthy and defiled and impure, and that he has chosen you to be right with him by faith in Christ. But he's not chosen us for salvation only.

But we have been chosen, you have been chosen, Christian, to be holy, and to be chosen to holiness. If we were to look, drill down deep, just into that word, holy, you've been chosen to be set apart. You've been chosen for moral purity.

Have you ever thought about your election in those terms, that you were by God's grace predestined for salvation? Yes, but also that in your work, and in your family, at home, at church, abroad, that you were predestined for holiness.

How might we live our lives differently if we thought in those terms, that the Lord has sovereignly predestined me for holy living before him. Before the world was made, I was called of God to be holy.

Matthew Henry said, all who are chosen to happiness as the end, are chosen to holiness as the means. In love, they were predestinated, or foreordained, to be adopted as children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, to be openly admitted to the privilege of that high relation to himself, that we might be holy as he is holy.

I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but I love watching, when you're watching someone's children, how they are very similar to their parents in certain respects. You can look at a child and go, wow, he has the same personality, he pauses at the same time in that same sentence, he has the same quirks.

You can look at my son and say, well, he obviously doesn't have the same height, but there are different things that we see in people, and we appreciate that they're exactly like their parent in that respect.

And it's interesting that Matthew Henry should say that happiness is the end, and that holiness is the means. If we were to go back in time, not many of you were in this room in August of 2021. A few of you were, August 2021, but I shared a story then of Matthew Henry's father, Philip Henry.

Philip Henry used to have this thing when he would marry couples, that he would say something along the lines of, others will wish you happiness. Maybe young engaged couples, you can think about this as well.

Others will wish you happiness, but I will wish you holiness, and then there is no doubt that you will have all happiness. That when a marriage is holy, it will be happy. When an individual is holy, he will be happy.

I assure you that the happiest being in the cosmos, beyond the cosmos, is God Himself because He is holy. And so what does this mean, dear Christian? That God chose you, that He chose you before the foundation of the world, that He has chosen you for holiness, and I would contend that He has chosen you for happiness.

Compare this for a moment with, and I don't mean to pick on the Wesleyans, the John and Charles Wesley, it's low-hanging fruit because they were just so vocal in their vehement opponent or in their vehement objections to Calvinism or the doctrines of grace.

Oh yes, we can all be vehement in some respects to that, but they were so vehement in their opposition to the doctrines of grace and Calvinistic theology. And what they used to say was this, and you tell me if this is more happy.

The Wesley brothers used to say that if believers were granted eternal security, that they would never pursue holiness, and therefore, believers must always live under the threat of being cut off that they might be holy, that only then would it be holy.