Eschatology of Hope: Redemption of the Individual

Hey, good morning. This is truth and love. Thank you for joining us this morning. I've got

Dan self with me again this morning. We're going through a series tackling looking at biblical concepts and ideas.

Part of that series is going to be looking at what we call the eschatology of hope. We've looked at.

What do we look at before repentance? We looked at repentance before and we're going to look at other concepts like believe just different concepts, ideas that we find in scripture that are relevant for the

Christian life. And part of that series is going to be this eschatology of hope. Eschatology, meaning last things in times.

And I know the subject gets really popular when bad things are happening in the world.

And we want to talk about it from a biblical standpoint. And I want to talk about why that's important here in a second.

But with us saying eschatology, I wanted us to explain that eschatology, eschatology just simply means last things in times.

And why do we call it the eschatology of hope? Daniel, what's the reason?

Why is it hopeful as opposed to the other ideas or the other brands of eschatology?

All the end time systems have an idea that's the same in the final analysis.

What we're looking forward to is the return of Jesus. He's going to come back. He's going to gather his people to himself.

He's going to take away sin, wipe away every tear, heal up every wound.

He's going to take those who reject him, those who are his enemies, and put them away forever in outer darkness.

He's going to take the creation as it is and perfect it, remove all the effects of sin.

And it's going to be perfect bliss in relationship between us, God, and creation forever.

The reason why we call this an eschatology of hope is because we believe that because of the redemption of Christ that's been purchased on the cross, and then applied by Christ as the high priest, that we'll begin to see those things take place in a small introductory form before the second coming.

So we'll start to see lengthening of life. We'll start to see people follow the law of God more and more as there become more and more

Christians upon the earth. So what we see is we see the final result of all things, of all redemption, bleeding over into this time before the second coming to a point where we believe that there's great hope to be had in the world today.

Even though things may look bleak, we know that Christ is working to put all of his enemies under his feet, and then comes the end when he returns and takes the kingdom and presents it to the

Father in heaven. So it's hopeful because we have a hope that some of that end times bliss of the eternal state, as sin is put away in the here and now, will bleed over into our time period.

So we're hopeful not only for the future, but also for the far future, for the eternal future, but also for our relatively near future, before Christ's second coming.

Right, right. And that bleakness that you talk about, that's the key thing everybody looks for, and that's when eschatology rears its head in people's minds when things are looking bleak.

But things looking bleak aren't unique to us. No, it's actually a good thing.

If you think about sin and the nature of it, sin being self -defeating, it eats itself. I mean, it can produce nothing but death.

So when sin starts to ramp up and we see the bleak effects on the world, we know that sin stores up the wrath of God, and at some point that wrath is poured out.

We saw that about the Amorites in the Old Testament. They said, you're not going into the land quite yet,

Israel, because the sin of the Amorites is not yet full. But one day it was full, and they went into the land and they took that land.

The same way now, as we see sin looking like it's taking victory, sin is just inching closer and closer to its destruction.

So when we see sin looking like it's winning, sin is just becoming that much closer to destruction.

So really, that's the way that things go. Think of the cross and the resurrection.

Where did sin look like it was getting its biggest victory? It looked like it was gaining its biggest victory and putting down the

Son of God. We don't want to deal with Him anymore, so we're going to kill Him. But in the killing of Christ, we have the redemption of men.

We have the shed blood that was then applied on our behalf. And really, what sin thought was going to be the biggest victory for it, what the devil thought was going to be his greatest victory, ended up being a victory for Christ, leading to all those wonderful eschatological hopes that we have in the future.

So as we see things getting bleak around us, you can have a hope that things are actually going the way that they should be.

Christ is going to put His enemies down. Right. Right. And that first part of the...

No, no, no. I'm hearing that echo again.

That first part of the victory... Beginning of the election. Where sin thought

He had the victory, Satan thought He had the victory, and that was the pinnacle.

Then the resurrection happens. And so that begins that eschatology of hope, the eschatology.

And we're going to touch on our first part of the series is redemption of the individual.

And so that's going to be our first part of looking at that victory that was won there on the cross and in the resurrection.

So praise the Lord, the echo's gone. All right. That's hard to work with.

So let me do another little introduction. This is truth and love. We get it from Ephesians chapter 4, verse 15.

But speaking of truth and love, we're to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, even the hard issues we want to tackle.

We want to study. We don't want to shy away from. And that's why that's why we like expository, expositional preaching.

So we don't miss anything. We even touch on the hard subjects and we just don't stick to topical.

We don't want to avoid those hard things because we want to know what God says. We want to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even

Christ. If we can pray for you, all you have to do is type me. Then and I will pray for you at the end.

Love to be able to do that. If you have any questions, we'll try to take questions live as well. The reason why

I think this talk about this issue or other reasons why I think it's important is two reasons

I thought about. Number one, and I kind of touched on it already. We want to know what God says.

A lot of times we bring in and I grew up kind of believing differently in a lot of in this area and a lot of other areas in theology.

But as I begin to study scripture and I saw what God said. I changed my theology.

I changed my understanding. And it's important that we don't bring in what we've been told.

We don't bring in our traditions. And sometimes we're going through circumstances in life.

We have certain emotions. And then we want to go to scripture to try to support a certain behavior, a certain reaction that we want to have to those emotions, to those circumstances.

And we don't want to do that with eschatology just because we grew up believing a certain in times theology.

We don't want to bring that to the table and try to read that into scripture. We want to bring out from scripture what

God is saying. So that's why it's important to have this conversation. The second reason it's important to have this conversation is because for clarity.

And that's that's not exactly what I was going to call it. I lost my train of thought.

But I think it's so funny. It's so interesting. I've been hearing recently. No, I know what it was.

People get their theology from other places besides the Bible. Today, especially they get it from social media.

I have been hearing lately. You get this. That is going around on tick tock.

A lot of people are getting their theology from tick tock because like we were talking about before, the bleakness is is hot and heavy.

They see the bad things going on around. So they're starting to make videos about in times what to look for.

These are the signs. And so people are getting their theology from tick tock or Facebook or YouTube, wherever.

But there must be a video going around on tick tock that is saying that airlines have a policy that a if you can't be a

Christian, if you're going to be a pilot. Because of the rapture, they don't want their pilots to be taken and then risk killing all the other passengers.

So it's going around, I guess, on some video somewhere that airlines have a policy that you can't be a

Christian. And I said, well, that can be true because I know a pilot and he's a Christian.

It's so important that we don't get our theology from tick tock. We don't get our theology from Facebook or YouTube.

We get it from God's word and we don't bring into God's word what we wanted to say or find proof takes for what we want to believe.

But we draw out from God's word what he says, what what he has done, what he wants us to know.

So with that being said, the three areas, the series that Dan and I are doing is called

What Is looking at biblical concepts and ideas. This series is looking at the eschatology of hope.

Which is also known as postmillennialism. Someone has watched too many left behind movies.

Absolutely. Thanks. Do you know

Becky Self? That's my wife. I thought you might know her. So the we're going to start off this series with a three part series.

What is eschatology? Redemption of the individual, redemption of creation and redemption of culture.

And you may ask yourself, why those other two? Because the main focus predominantly.

Is is the focus on the individual. You don't really hear a lot about the redemption of the creation, redemption of culture.

And that's part of what Dan was describing just a few minutes ago. Why is it eschatology of hope?

Because that hope applies to the here and now. It applies to our near future.

The other eschatological points wait for that hope to happen instantly in the far future.

Well, or they they expected at any moment. But they expected to happen.

Immediately or in an instant. We see it.

We see the Bible described. This eschatology is happening as a as a mustard seed as leaven as growing slowly.

The Bible describes it, but it's a it's a hope that is having an effect on our here.

Now, our near future, not just our eternal state, our eternal future.

And so let's talk about the regeneration or redemption of the individual.

And then we'll talk about creation and culture next time. But before we do that,

I want to give us several verses on our theme. The verses that help us to understand that it's that we it's more than just redemption of the individual.

Why we bring creation, why we bring culture into this redemption idea.

Jesus came to die not just for the individual, but for creation, but and for culture.

And we get those. I want to look at three different passages. The first one is

Colossians chapter one, 16 through 20. And the Bible says for by him, all things were created.

We're speaking of Christ here, both in the heavens and on our visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created by him and for him. And he is before all things. And in him, all things hold together.

He is also the head of the body, the church. And he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself might come to have first place in everything.

For it was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him.

This is our key verse. And through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross.

Through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And then our second passage is

Second Corinthians chapter five verses 17 to 17 to 21.

Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away.

Behold, new things have come. Now, all things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.

And he was and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were entreating through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

And then our last passage and the passage that will stay at just for a moment is

Ephesians chapter one verse 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times.

That is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things upon the earth.

So. That's the kind of passage where we understand that redemption has more to do than just the individual.

It encompasses also creation and culture. Any thoughts on those verses?

Oh, plenty. But we'll need to get into. OK. OK. We'll go ahead and start.

Then we'll stay in Ephesians. Our focus is going to be first, the redemption of the individual.

And we're looking at Ephesians chapter one verses three through 14.

But then I'll let you read and just talk about them because I've talked enough already.

I'll let you share Ephesians chapter one with us. All right. Let's look at verses three through 14.

Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Now, if we back up into the first two verses, we realize he's talking to the saints, specifically the ones that are in Ephesus.

So he's talking to believers here. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

That's verse four. That we should be holy and blameless before him 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.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight.

He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his kind intention, which he purposed in him.

Then we come to verse 10, which Brother Robert read just a second ago. 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 heaven and things on the earth.

In him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, works all things after the counsel of his will.

To the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of his glory.

In him you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with the

Holy Spirit of promise, who was given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory.

This entire passage is talking about redemption in its fullness and its specificness to mankind.

It says in verse 10, he's summing up all things in Christ, things in the heavens and in the earth.

That's more than just the individual person. That is the entirety of creation. That phrase is encompassing of his main thrust, which is individual redemption.

He's talking about individual redemption and putting it in the context of Christ's work in redeeming all of creation, of the heavens and the earth.

It's important to understand what redemption is. Not only that, but why do we need it?

Redemption happens or needs to happen because sin has entered into the world.

Sin entered into the world as a sort of cosmic treason.

I've mentioned that phrase before. What that means is that when Adam and Eve sinned, what they did was as the creation of God, they being heads of creation, mainly

Adam being head of creation, took it upon himself to sin and in sinning brought sin and the effects of sin upon all mankind and into creation.

So that way creation itself is tainted by the sin of Adam. Adam was put in the garden to tend and care for it.

He was also given a charge over the earth itself. That sin entered into mankind, it entered into the creation around us, and that is considered the fall.

The fall is said in just over on the next page in my

Bible, Ephesians 2, 3 says that indulging in the desires of the flesh and of the mind, we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

So what happened is we were at one point in Adam and Eve before the fall, children of God.

That nature changed when we sinned because God is good and righteous and holy.

We then became sinners, became children of wrath.

The inheritance of children of wrath is not the earth. It's not the garden.

It's not goodness, and it's not relationship with God. The things that children of wrath inherit are the wrath of God and judgment, death and hell.

In order for all of creation to be as God created it to be,

God had to take those who were held captive to their nature of sin and death, those children of wrath being us, and the creation that we had tainted with our sin.

God needed to purchase back or take back from sin to change the nature of His creation.

And that's what we're getting at when we're talking about redemption. A redemption is a buying back of a slave or a captive.

So what He's buying back is a people for Himself and His creation in whole.

And what were they captive to? What were we captive to? We're captive to sin because it is now our nature to sin.

So God is purchasing us from sin, which means He has to take sin away from us, which means our sin has to be paid for.

It has to be atoned for. So that's what this passage is talking about.

He's talking to these saints who have found redemption in Christ. He's telling them that He's blessing

God first off in verse 3. He says, Christ then in verse 4 says,

That's a whole other can of worms. We're going to try to stay focused for now on the redemption aspect.

He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.

Adoption of sons. He's going out and finding children of wrath and saying,

I'm going to take you from your father, the devil, and I'm going to adopt you as my own sons.

You're going to now be a part of my family. I'm going to take you and make you different in status and in nature.

You're no longer going to be like that father who is a deadbeat and a derelict father who can only lead you to destruction.

I'm going to take you and make you one of my children. That's the idea of adoption.

Why did God do it? Why did Jesus, before the foundations of the world, look out and find a people for Himself and then go and purchase them with His blood?

It's according to the kind intention of His will. The praise of His glorious grace, which

He freely bestowed on us in the beloved or in Christ. That's when we come into the meat of this passage in 7 -10.

In Him, in Christ, we have redemption through His blood. How is it that we as fallen creatures are going to find individual redemption?

How is it that Robert sitting in North Carolina and me sitting in New York and you sitting wherever it is that you're sitting, how is it that you will find redemption, that you will no longer be a child of wrath under sin, but will be a child of God having been purchased back from the captivity of sin that leads to death?

The answer is in the next phrase, we have redemption through His blood. It's kind of fitting that we're talking about all this this week.

What's today? Saturday? It's still tomorrow, tomorrow, one of my days of the week. Tomorrow, the church has historically decided to celebrate the resurrection.

We celebrate the resurrection because of what happened in the days prior. It's all linked up together, let me explain.

When it says that we find redemption in His blood, we see that Jesus, having lived a perfect life, was then put on the cross in the place of sinners.

He had nails driven through His hands and a spear driven through His side, crown of thorns placed on His head.

He was punished by those who held the rule of law unjustly, but He was punished nonetheless.

And He was punished in order to die. It was the shedding of His blood.

It was His dying in our place that was that sacrifice, that atonement, the thing that it made up for our sin.

What our sin destroyed, Christ's righteous sacrifice restored.

So when He died on the cross, He did so in order that we could have forgiveness.

Because the penalty of our sin, where sin was leading us captive, was to death. So what

Christ did instead was He came under the shackles of our sin, so to speak, took our sin to its logical conclusion, to its destination, which was death, the grave.

He went in there with our sin and killed it. And in that moment,

He purchased for redemption those who would be saved. He bought back from sin those who would have fallen into sin and died because of it, eternally died because of it.

So it says that we have redemption through His blood of the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.

Can I interject something real quick? Absolutely. Go ahead. Some people may have this question, and this question comes up sometimes.

Starting in the first two words in my version, in verse 7, in Him, if you're so inclined, go back to the video that we did earlier this week where we had a panel and we discussed questions.

One of those questions was talking about who is Jesus. You know, you can stop right there and just do a whole study on who

Jesus is, why He's different than any other religion, why He's different than any other prophet, why

He's different than any other teacher. Find out who this in Him is. Find out who this

Jesus of the Bible, this Jesus of Nazareth, find out who Jesus is and why

He's different than all other, anyone that has ever been born. Find out who

Jesus is, this in Him that Paul talks about in verse 7. Find out who He is.

And then as Dan was wonderfully describing what Christ did for us on the cross, purging us with His blood, the question comes up sometimes, how can that save so many?

And how can that cover for an eternity? And how can that appease an eternally holy

God and His eternal, holy, just wrath? And when you study that in Him, when you study who that is, when you study and find out who

Christ is, you learn that He is the second member of the Trinity, that He is fully

God Himself. Therefore, He is completely holy and perfect, is eternally holy and perfect.

So it is the quality of the sacrifice that allows

God to cover the sins of so many people and cover them for an eternity.

It's because of the quality of the sacrifice and who He was. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. Okay. Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to maybe answer that question, folks.

If we're going to have an eternal consequence for sin, we need an eternal Savior to save us.

That's right. That's why no man could ever pay for sin. Because men are finite.

We're bound by time. We have 70, 80 years, maybe a little longer.

Nowhere close to being an eternity. And even then, we're sinful. So yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Want me to continue? Absolutely. All right. All right. Verse 8. Yeah. He lavished on us.

It was according to the riches of His grace, the redemption that He purchased through the blood of Christ was according to the riches of His grace.

His kindness, His looking out. He didn't have to do this for us, but because it was love for His creation.

John 3 .16. For God so loved the world, His creation, that He gave His only Son. Which He lavished on us.

He gave it freely, copiously.

Copiously. Let's see a better word for that. Abundantly. A lot.

Yeah. In all wisdom and insight. In other words, this wasn't just something that He felt.

It was. But it's more than just feelings. This was in His wisdom and His knowledge. This was well thought out, well felt.

This is an entire. Sometimes we have a tension in ourselves between knowledge and emotion.

We want to feel our way into something or we want to think our way into something or out of something. That wasn't the case with God.

These weren't in conflict with one another. His emotional state, which, again, another can of worms about God's passions and things.

But we'll stay focused. God's emotional state and His mental state completely in concert.

He was 100 % in line with what He was doing. He was full ahead.

This is where He was going. Heart, mind, His being. Because He gave

His son to us in order for us to have redemption. Right. Doing a biblical study on wisdom, too, is important for us.

Because we may question and wonder, why am I having this internal struggle?

Why am I having this external struggle with the world? Because the way

God wants me to do things is contrary, and it goes against the grain of what internally

I want to do. Or it's contradicting what I see in the world, the wisdom of the world.

And Scripture teaches us that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world.

And so a deeper study of wisdom from Scripture will help us to understand why that tension exists there internally and externally with the world.

Yep. He goes on, says, He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His kind intention, which

He purposed in Him. This is talking about God revealing these truths to us.

It's that not only did He purchase redemption and then apply it to us,

He made known to us what took place. He made known to us through the

Holy Spirit, which I believe we're going to get into further in a little bit.

But I want to show how all this connects down together. He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His kind intention, which

He purposed in Him, with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of time.

In other words, this redemption was going to be played out suitable to the complete redemption of creation.

The fullness of times, the entirety of human history is going to find its redemption as Christ purposed and purchased it.

That is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

The entirety of creation is serving to glorify

God in Christ's redemption of that creation. This happens in two ways.

One, the children of wrath are put away, or two, the children of wrath are redeemed and made children of God.

That's what we're getting at with redemption. Redemption is necessary because of our sin, and redemption is glorious not because we receive it, but because in our reception of redemption, in Christ's purchasing of us,

God is glorified as a good God who would not let His rebellious creation remain in the rebellion.

He is summing up all things. His whole creation is glorifying Him with a glory that is suitable for the fullness of time.

Think of all three persons of the Trinity, their perfection in eternity past and stretching on into eternity future.

What sort of redemption is worthy of a God like that? It's only redemption that actually redeems as big as He is.

His redemption is stronger than any sin that we could have. It stretches longer than any sin that we could get into.

It is deeper and more penetrating than anything that we could ever...

I lost my train of thought, but it is... I think that is so profound.

What you just said, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I wanted to reiterate that.

What you just said is so profound, and I think it's actually the first time that I've ever heard that. To my shame,

I guess, but God's redemption has to be as big as He is.

That's why it's so glorious. And that's why this eschatology is so hopeful.

It's as big as He is, which is unfathomable. And I can't pronounce these big words correctly, but it's beyond our comprehension.

His redemption has to be as big as He is. That's how good and thorough this redemption is in us, in creation, and in culture.

Wow, that's amazing. There's more.

Verse 11 says, In Him, also, we have obtained an inheritance.

An inheritance is something that children receive, or someone who's in a will.

Things are willed to you. Your inheritance is when someone has passed on, you receive an inheritance.

Or when a certain set of conditions have been met, your inheritance is released to you. We have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will.

What is that inheritance? The inheritance is the benefits of redemption.

The benefits of redemption are all those things that come with being a child of God.

It is God Himself. You have relationship with Him. The goodness of God is now yours because you've been changed in your nature to be like God in the fact that He is holy.

You don't gain divinity, but you are made holy like God.

Partially now in your standing, and then later actually holy with your sins fully taken from you where you cannot do them anymore.

Then we have the earth. The earth will be made perfect. There's a term in science called entropy.

Entropy is a tendency of all things to wear down or break down over time. That will go away.

Creation will be perfect, and that is where we will live in relationship with God forever.

That was our purpose in the first place, to live on the earth in relationship with God.

That is what we are working back towards. He is going to redeem His creation as well.

We will inherit the earth in order to have a place to live while we are in perfect relationship with God.

We gain salvation. We gain Christ Himself. We gain the earth as our place where we are able to live with God.

We have many more blessings. It says that Christ died and came and gave us gifts. We have a cat.

Cats, I guess. Can you redeem cats? I don't think so, especially not this guy.

We will put it this way. God... God created cats, which

He did. His redemption is big enough to redeem anything that He has ever created.

There we go. Even though I don't know how He is going to do it, God is powerful enough to redeem even cats.

Going back to our Q &A, it seems to be a theme amongst participants running across screens.

Verse 12, to the end. He is working all these things after the counsel of Israel.

We receive an inheritance, having been predestined... I'm going to go back into verse 11. I skipped some. We have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of Israel.

This is His purpose. To the end. Why has God purposed these things, professing these things, and causing these things to happen and take place?

To the end, that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, would be to the praise of His glory, so that our redemption would glorify

God. I've heard it said before that God saw me so worthy of His salvation, or He loved me so much that He came to the earth.

It's really getting things backwards. While it's true that God does love us, that He did have compassion in His eyes and His heart when

He came to the earth to redeem us. But the overarching purpose of His redemption of us was the glory of His own name, which is to be expected.

An eternal, glorious, gigantic God as we have, whose redemption is as big as He is, should have a glory to match.

And so His purposes were that we, being redeemed, would glorify

God. Verse 13, In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the

Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.

This is important because we've been talking a lot about redemption, how Christ has purchased a redemption.

But how is that redemption applied to us? How do we get it?

How do I know that I am redeemed? And this is it here.

There's a message that has been given out called the gospel. The gospel is the telling of the story of how

God came from heaven to redeem mankind. How God came from heaven in the person of Christ.

How He lived on the earth perfectly as we didn't. He lived without sin.

He then took our sin upon Himself, going to the cross, having

His blood shed, having Him dying in our place, going into the grave that we should be going into, laying there for three days and then conquering that grave, rising up out of it.

He then talked to people, went up to the Father in heaven, and sits there at the right hand of God.

That is the message of the gospel of salvation. Christ then, taking His sacrifice, applied

His blood to the mercy seat. In other words, His sacrifice was made perfect and applied on the behalf of those who were going to be redeemed.

And when this message comes to the ears of someone, they have choices.

They can either accept that message or reject it. Now, in our sinful state, why would we ever want to please

God? That's right. We wouldn't. That's right. So when we hear this message, it says that those who are saints,

He says, you have believed. And those who believe are then sealed with the Holy Spirit and your salvation can never be taken from you.

Because your salvation didn't depend upon your actions to begin with.

Your faith, your repentance, your turning from your sin is a response to the redemption that has been purchased on your behalf by God.

This is why up in verse 4, it says, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

This work of redemption that was accomplished by Christ is also applied to us by Christ and through the working of the

Holy Spirit in our hearts to cause us to believe the message as we hear it and receive it in faith, to turn from our sins and to trust in Christ.

So some may say, what do I do? I want to believe, but I don't know if I do.

The only thing you can do is to listen to the gospel, to hear the gospel, to go, where is this message of hope located?

The message of hope has been located within the Christian church. They've been given several things.

They've been given the Word of God, which is by far the most direct because it is

God speaking to us. These truths that we've been talking about today are found in the

Bible. They're there. You don't know if you have redemption.

Look to the scriptures because in them Christ is revealed. Sit there until you find it.

Don't get up. Don't leave. This is of utmost importance. Another is prayer.

God does not turn away any of His children. He has predestined us in Him before the foundation of the world.

If you truly are seeking redemption, Christ finds all of His children.

Everyone that the Father draws will come to Him. So if you're looking for redemption, how do

I gain redemption? You gain redemption through the work of Christ. So you sit at His feet until you find it there.

That's a lifelong thing that we do. Even those of us who know that we believe, we don't now go off and do something else.

Somehow Christianity gets deeper somewhere away from the gospel. Christianity gets deeper and deeper the longer we sit at the foot of the cross and look at Him and His redemption for us.

It's in looking at the cross and the gospel that we learn how to do the rest of life.

How we actually start to live as if that inheritance is ours now. We live like sin isn't here anymore.

That's also why we have that hope. We live like sin isn't present.

We live like it's not here anymore because we know that that redemption is something purchased by Christ for us.

I'm sure I'm bleeding over into other things. Get us back on a track.

That was a perfect track. It was a perfect opportunity to worship

Christ, explaining who He is and His gospel and what He's done, how to respond to the gospel. I appreciate that explanation of what to do if you're seeking, if you're having questions.

Just having a desire to seek is a good sign, I would say, because that means the

Holy Spirit is doing a work in you. If you didn't have a desire to be seeking, then

I would be worried. Along with that redemption of all our life and how we live comes with living out that life with a sense of authority that we didn't have before, because not only is

Christ purchased and redeeming the individual's creation and culture,

He's doing it with authority because He's sitting at the right hand of God. He's doing it as king.

So we are now moving forward in our lives. We're moving forward in our our redemption.

We're moving forward in creation. We're moving forward in culture.

Moving forward with Jesus as our king, he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

So we present the gospel of the gospel of a king. The king of the universe.

So he is now he is king. He is your king now, whether you acknowledge him or not.

We are we just we're moving forward with authority. And I think that's that's powerful and something that we sometimes miss out on.

And we become meek and timid. But we can we can move forward with with conviction, with confidence, because we are moving forward following a king who has gone before us.

And he he marches before us and he is with us and will never leave us nor forsake us.

Just one thought that I had as you were talking. One of the one of the things that people have thinking about God looking down through the corridors of time and seeing me and loving me, and therefore he comes to die for me, though that aspect of God loving us is true, that that mindset seems to lead us to an idea of somehow

I'm lovable. Well, it puts the wrong thing in the center of the discussion. Right, exactly.

Yeah, it replaces who ought to be in the center. God with ourselves. God somehow

God looked at us and saw us worthy, whereas God saw himself worthy of our praise and went out and got us.

That's right. Yes. So I want to look at three more passages and we won't go through them verse by verse unless unless we feel like we need to, but we'll just make a few points from these passages, because there's when you're looking at redemption, when you're looking at salvation, there's different aspects of salvation that you can.

And Dan and I are just kind of bringing out the highlights. We're wanting to glorify God and worship Christ by talking about what he's done.

But there are different aspects that the scripture speaks of different steps, stages of that redemption of the individual that you can do further study on.

And we just want to make highlights about those things. Romans chapter five, verses eight through 10.

Let me read those verses real quick. But God demonstrates his own love toward us that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. And Dan has already talked about the reason for this, the need for this redemption is because of our sin.

Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.

For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son.

Much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only this, but we also exalt in God through our

Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Oh, I was supposed to stop at 10.

Those words there are all part, all aspects of our salvation justification being reconciled.

We were enemies of God in our minds through wicked works. These are all things that you can dive deeper into to discover and understand who we are apart from Christ, who we are in Adam.

We are enemies of God, but he reconciled us and now we are his friend.

We shall be saved by his life. What does

Christ's life? I thought it was just his death, burial and resurrection. What does his life do for us?

Well, Christ's life is his righteousness because of the life that he lived is imputed to us.

It's counted as our righteousness. It's not infused where you have some of our righteousness and some of Jesus's righteousness fused together to make us good.

No, it's not that at all. There's nothing within us that can please God. Nothing within us that can make us right with God that can save us.

We must have in us an alien righteousness, something outside of us, and God takes

Christ and imputes it, gives it to us, implants it in us so that he sees

Christ in us instead of who we are and what we've done. And that's the only merit that we have to stand before God is the imputed righteousness of Christ, which he gained in his life, living that sinless and perfect life.

Romans chapter five verses 19 through 21. For as through one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.

And the law came in that the transgression might increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

That as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to the eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

Lord. And that's just other verses reiterating concepts that we just talked about.

You can study the law, grace, sin, and righteousness.

All those concepts that you can dig into and to help you worship our glorious savior.

And then we will flip over to Romans chapter eight verses 28 through 31. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love

God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

And whom he predestined, these he also called. And whom he called, he also justified.

And whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us? So the first thing that we need to recognize and realize in these verses, who is the one doing the work?

It is he, it is he, it is he who has done this. It is God who has done this.

So he gets all the credit, all the glory, all the honor for salvation, for redemption of the individual.

He's done it all from beginning to end. And as we're looking at aspects, steps, stages of our salvation, and Dan hit on this earlier, it started before the foundation of the world.

That's why Paul uses that language of predestination for knowing this is a plan that he put forth before the foundation of the world.

He predestined, he foreknew and predestined and elected those who would be saved.

And that language is, you know, saturated in the New Testament. These are key concepts that we can dig further into to understand who

God is and to know who the God that we serve and to worship him. And to learn all the ins and outs and aspects of his salvation, his redeeming us.

And if you want to take it a step further, and I know for some people that may be listening to this, it may be new.

It may some of these concepts may make you angry because you have believed a certain way for so many years.

You've been taught a different way. These are we want to just point out these biblical concepts so that you can dig into them a little bit further and see.

Scripture does talk about these and and. They talk about how

God does it, how God saves and that is his role, his responsibility that no man can boast that.

That concept is and those verses that bring out that concept were the one thing that led me down this path of understanding how salvation works.

When I read that God is the only true and living

God and he's not going to share his glory with another that encompasses salvation.

He's not going to share his glory with anyone, including me. So there's going to be no room for me to boast when it comes to my salvation.

Salvation is all of him from the foundation or before the foundation of the world to the very end.

It's all him. He gets all the glory. And this this other aspect that I wanted to mention about salvation and then we will.

We're just going to define each of these stages very, very briefly, very quickly.

And I want to ask Dan to do that. But one other one that I wanted to mention.

It's if you look at 1st John, 1st John, and I'm not going to turn there. I have one right here in front of me so that we don't have to take time to flip to those pages.

But if you look at 1st John 2, 29, 1st John 3, 9 and 1st

John 4, 7. Let me just read the first one so you'll know kind of what

I'm talking about. 1st John 2, 29 says, if you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

So what John is teaching us is that you can know that you've been born again because you practice righteousness.

Something has to happen first so that there's a result.

And the result is this practicing righteousness. The same thing in the next verse, 1st

John 3, 9. No one born of God makes practice of sinning. So if if you've been born again, then the result is you don't make practice a practice of sinning.

1st John 4, 7. Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows

God. So if you've been born of God and know God, then there's a result of loving one another.

That's a result. That's how you can know that you've been born again. And then the key verse that is that is brought out in this article,

I found it on Founders Ministry. It's a discussion of Bunyan. And.

And his. His understanding of these versus John Bunyan, who wrote

Pilgrim's Progress, 1st John 5, 1. And this is the key one.

And this one may be difficult for some folks. It says everyone who believes. And there's the key part.

Everyone who believes you talk. We talk about how can we respond to God? The biblical command for us is repentance and faith.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. And everyone who loves the father loves whoever has been born of him.

So what John is teaching us here is that if we've been born of God, if we've been regenerated, that's the word that that's that's the theological word that we use.

If we've been regenerated. Then a result of that is that we will believe.

And the same the other side of that coin is we will repent as well. If God regenerates us.

The result, according to 1st John, chapter five, verse one, we will believe and repent or repent and believe.

And so understanding how God does things so that we can worship him and glorify him in greater and deeper ways, he regenerates us.

It gives us the gift of repentance and faith. And we have this this calling, we call it an effectual call.

Dan, could you kind of explain briefly what an effectual call is for salvation? Yeah, absolutely.

Let's start in Romans eight, starting in verse twenty nine.

It actually speaks to this. OK, for those whom he foreknew. Now, that is not talking about foreknowledge in the sense that he had some knowledge that he then acted on.

This is about God's. It's an act. It's a verb. It's an active verb.

It's not a noun that he had. It's a verb that he does. He foreknew. Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.

So those are the ones who will be regenerated and then believe. And why were they predestined?

To become conformed to the image of his son so that they would be the firstborn among many brethren.

I forget exactly how you phrased your question. So an effectual call?

Yes, effectual calling. The reason why we were called was to be conformed to the image of the son.

It's not the other way around. Like those verses in First John, if you look at them from the wrong angle, you could almost try to shoehorn in there the idea that what you're doing is acting right in order to find repentance, faith, and believe, and then become regenerated.

What the Bible is saying is that God foreknew a people.

It was his purpose in time past, before the foundation of the world began, like we looked at in Ephesians.

That on the basis of his choosing a people for himself in Christ, he foreknew those people to be his own.

He then goes out and predestines them to be his for the purpose of conforming them to the image of his son.

Now the very first thing that happens to us in order to be conformed to the image of his son is that we believe in, accept, reverence, and glorify the

Father. And that is God. So effectual calling is that God knows his people, calls to them, and every one of his children will believe, repent of their sins, place their faith in Christ, and live that way for the remainder of their days.

Not perfectly, but they will be called to God, they will respond positively at some point.

They may reject the gospel 30, 40, 100 times before they accept it, but at some point in their life,

God's calling, all that the Father is drawing, will come to the

Son. And the means that he does to call people to himself is through the gospel. That's right.

In other words, his calling will have an effect.

Absolutely. It will. The book of Isaiah says that his word will not return void.

It always accomplishes what he means for it to do. Now that could be, in the case of those who are being saved, it is a call unto repentance and faith and belief in salvation.

Now we also need to remember that there's a flip side to that. It says that God hardened

Pharaoh's heart. So the word of God sets before you, like it says in Deuteronomy, he sets before you today in the gospel life, faith, death, destruction.

So each and every time that we hear the gospel, it is an outward call to each individual to turn in faith and repentance to Christ.

That call will be effectual when worked upon the heart by the

Holy Spirit. If you hear the call of God today, do not turn away from it.

The book of Hebrews says that there's a day appointed for salvation. That day is today.

Because if God is calling to us outwardly, we need to turn in response to it.

There may come a time where that outward call no longer comes. This is all getting into free will versus sovereignty.

Really, there's no versus in there. It's all together. We will willingly do whatever

God sovereignly decrees and may ask how that works. We don't really know.

His ways are higher than our ways. The important thing to remember is that God has a purpose that he is fulfilling.

His means of accomplishing that is always through outward and ordinary means of his word and calling people to faith in him in the gospel.

So if you're hearing the message of the gospel, your duty each and every time is to turn in repentance and faith to Christ.

That effectual call you're talking about proves that his foreknowing, predestinating work will be accomplished.

That doesn't diminish our responsibility as individuals to hear the gospel, repent of our sin, and turn to him in faith.

I love that verse that you mentioned from Hebrews. There's a day appointed for salvation, and he doesn't leave us uninformed of when that day is.

He says today is the day of salvation. I love that verse.

It's so amazing. Today is the day of salvation. There's a time that is appointed, and it's today.

When you hear his voice, don't harden your heart. Turn to him and believe on him.

You've already touched on adoption. Anything else you want to say about adoption?

No. I'll go over it again, just real briefly. Adoption is the idea that we were once children of wrath, but have been adopted by God as his own children.

That means that he saw us sitting over there in the pool of children of wrath.

Pool is probably a bad word for it. The group who were children of wrath, those who had turned their back on him, and said, this is my creation and adopted for himself a people.

They no longer inherit the inheritance of the children of wrath. They now inherit the promises of the gospel.

That means that we can truly call God our father, Christ our brother. That means that we truly have every benefit that my two sons, who are making all sorts of ruckus upstairs right now, and my little girl, every bit of benefit that they have of being my children.

We have that in his adoption of us and more.

Because he controls all things and is eternal. He has things to offer that I can never offer my children.

It's not just that he brings us in as one of his own, but he then gives us a full inheritance of all that he has, minus his deity.

Because he is God and he's not going to share his glory with another. Even though we may have the full shining benefits of it on us, that's his glory.

These stages and concepts and ideas of salvation, and all of what

God does, as you were talking about earlier, we could spend eternity discovering and understanding the glories of all these aspects of salvation.

As you were talking, I was reminded of Colossians 1, verse 13. Part of that salvation is being transferred from the domain or dominion of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son.

We're not just subjects. We're slaves to Christ.

We're subjects in his kingdom. But you have this idea of adoption where we inherit all these wonderful things that you just talked about.

It's more than just being transferred, which is glorious in and of itself, the transferring out of darkness into his kingdom.

We're a slave of Christ, but we're more than that. We're a subject in his kingdom, but we're more than that.

We're adopted as sons. It's glorious. It's amazing. Then we have justification, where God justifies us.

Of course, your description in Ephesians, as you walked us through Ephesians, covered that.

Any last thoughts on justification? Think of it as a courtroom.

You stand condemned before God because of your sin. The process of justification is that initial process of being declared not guilty.

You're not guilty of your sin. Why? Because Christ has paid the penalty for it. It's almost like if you extend the metaphor out, the rest of these things give the rest of the picture.

Sanctification is a process of changing out of shackles and prison clothes into a clothes fit for the marriage supper.

At the end, clothes fit for heaven. Breaking out into the sunlight for the first time after sitting in court and hearing not guilty.

If you extend the metaphor, it's glorification. You're now free and fully in Christ's light.

I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm sure you are. Justification, you can think of as a courtroom.

It's that initial step of being declared not guilty. Just like our law system in America, God's is the same way.

If you are once charged for an acquitted of a crime, you can never be charged for it again. When you're declared not guilty, it is a permanent standing before God.

You're declared innocent of your sins because of Christ and his sacrifice for us. He has taken our place as the guilty party.

We're just going to look at two more. The next one will be sanctification. Sanctification really touches on how we were describing eschatology and why it's an eschatology of hope.

Because it has an effect on our lives in the here and now, in our near future.

It's a process that's going on right now. After we're justified, after we're made right with God, he begins this process of working in us through the

Holy Spirit of becoming who we are.

I heard you use the term, when we're in our eternal state, it will be actualized.

But that's who God sees us as. He sees us as who we are when we're actualized because of what

Christ did and what's been imputed to us. He sees Christ's righteousness.

He sees us as perfect because he sees Christ. But this process that he's working in us as we're here, that has an effect on us on the here and now, in our near future, is this process of sanctification, this process of separating us more and more and more from the world and from sin and from the results of sin and the consequences of sin and making us more like Christ.

As you delve deeper into that concept, you talk about why we go through suffering, why

God allows suffering, why God allows certain things in our lives. It's a refining.

I've heard it said that Martin Luther made the comment that marriage is the school of character,

I think. Something like that? I think

I've heard somebody quote Martin Luther say that. I guess Martin Luther was talking about how in marriage, where you find difficulties, if you allow the

Holy Spirit to be working in you and you're submitting to Christ, you're submitting to his word and you're behaving as the husband or the wife that you should be, then through those difficulties, through those arguments, through those situations, you're being refined.

God is growing your character and who you are and making you more like Christ so that you can be an example, you can show off Christ to the world.

Any thoughts on sanctification? Yeah, if you continue down in Romans 8 to verse 35, who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?

Basically all hard things that we may encounter, probably will encounter to some degree in our sanctification, that process of growing us up into Christ.

Just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered a sheep to be slaughtered.

And here's what Paul says about those things, those hard things that we may go through as part of our sanctification process.

This is why I think it is part of our sanctification process. But in all these things, what things?

Tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and peril and sword, all those things, we overwhelmingly conquer or other translations say we are more than conquerors.

We are super conquerors in these things through Him who loved us.

So it's that process of sanctification where we go through these hard things where we are conquering sin because we are being conformed into the image of Christ.

We know that that can take place because we have been given the

Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1 .14 well back in 13 it says we are sealed in Him, in Christ, in our salvation with the

Holy Spirit of promise who was given as a pledge of our inheritance. We can think of that pledge as earnest money.

If you ever think of earnest money, you give a bit of money to someone in order to prove that the full amount is on the way or hold my spot,

I'm going to give you this, the rest of it is on the way. We have been given now the gift of the

Holy Spirit to sanctify us, to grow us up into Christ here and now while we still live in a sinful fallen world as a pledge, a seal, a promise almost that one day we will see that sin completely taken away.

So that process of sanctification like you were saying earlier proves our justification because it actually comes from the work of God in our lives.

Right. Yeah, and as you were reading again that piece from Ephesians another aspect of this salvation is the sealing of the

Holy Spirit that perseverance of the saints. We are going to persevere. We can't undo what

God has done. We can't be taken away. We can't be plucked out because we are sealed with the

Holy Spirit. It's complete. That work is complete and it's done and it can't be undone.

And then I guess the last one that I wanted to touch on unless you have any others would be glorification.

What are your thoughts on glorification? Glorification is that it's the part of salvation where it's all smiles.

It's that part at the end where after feeling the weight of your sin after having that holy anxiety over what do

I do with my sin I can't get rid of it on my own you look to Christ but you still keep on doing the things that you don't want to do that you do want to do.

Romans 7 comes full force you have that sort of anxiety over what do

I do. You keep on trusting in Christ you go through the entire process of standing in court hearing of you're not guilty feeling almost like I feel like I still am what do

I do with this body of death I hate my sin I want to be free from it you yearn and long is the process at the end where we are raised immortal and sinless.

It is that point where your tears are wiped away where your sadness is gone where your body is no longer falling apart your body has been glorified it's been made perfect in Christ it is the end of salvation that we all look forward to.

It is it is it is us having that full glory of God shown upon us something that Moses never could have happened he wanted to see the glory of the

Lord and he only got to see his backside while hidden in a rock. Glorification is that time when we don't have any sin that would destroy us when the glory of God hits us in the face.

It's that time when all of those the weight of sin is taken away with and we have full and complete salvation.

It is that aspect that we're still waiting for. It is that hope that gets us giddy it makes us weep on on Easter and Christmas knowing that Christ should be all year long especially

Easter and Christmas things because it is a it's the deliverance of bondage it is the end game of what

Christ has done for us. It is as John Murray put it a redemption accomplished and a plot is done is finished as Jesus said.

And that's and we have that glorification there in Romans chapter 8 verse 30 again it's

God who gets the credit he also justified who he justified these he also glorified we're seen as glorified but it's going to be realized and actualized it's going to happen it's going to be it's going to be happening for us and then what shall we say then if God is for us who can be against us there's something there's a result of this being sealed by the

Holy Spirit being seen as glorified being justified there's a benefit to this that we can spend hours again discussing and worshiping

God because of that benefit not only are we going to persevere not only we can't be plucked out but who can be against us

I mean we're going to have enemies as as Dan read in verse 35 we're going to have all these things against us but compared to who is on our side they are nothing they cannot stand before him that's why we can move forward as Christ with Christ as our

King he has all authority in heaven and on earth and we can move forward and we can continue marching and no matter what they do to us insult us or even do to our bodies we can move forward because no enemy can stand before God and we are walking in his path in his ways in his design for our good and his glory and so what a glorious gospel and we want to we want to end with that I want to share the gospel with you and then

I'd like to ask Dan to pray for us before we close out but you you sometimes hear here on TV and you'll see on in books that this concept of God has a wonderful plan for your life and as Dan spoke to us earlier about that concept of this this idea of the gospel this idea of redemption it's so wonderful and so powerful because to accomplish all that it needs to accomplish this gospel this redemption needs to be as big as God is so when you when you hear on TV this idea of God has a wonderful plan for your life or you see these books on the bookshelves that God has a wonderful plan for your life you need to just sit those books down push them aside because that worldly concept is pales in comparison to the gospel of Jesus Christ it is so weak this idea of this life is all that there is and we need to we need to experience all that there is

I just read an article recently about somebody we're being encouraged that we don't have to experience sin experience what the world has to offer to be able to connect with unbelievers no we we have we've been redeemed by this gospel that is as big as the

God who gives it and and as we spend time diving into that gospel learning more about that gospel we our minds will be blown our hearts will be full and we will be satisfied we'll be satisfied in Christ if if you do not know

Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior as we've talked about in Hebrews it says today is the day of salvation don't put it off don't look to the future don't think my time is tomorrow

I want to continue experiencing what the world has to offer we're not promised tomorrow we don't know what tomorrow holds we don't know what the next minute holds we're calling out to you the gospel of Jesus Christ from his word that he he had this plan of redemption because he loved his creation he loved the world and this this fallen world that that made us enemies this sin that made us enemies of him we are his enemies and we spit in his face we throw our fist at him and despite as we read earlier while we were yet sinners

Christ died for us he died for his enemies those that hate him he died for them and part of that plan was being

God himself Jesus Christ coming into this earth in the form of a man taking on flesh born of a virgin living a sinless perfect life and then dying on the cross taking upon himself the wrath of God in our place the wrath that we deserve and then he was raised from the dead the tomb is empty which we will celebrate tomorrow and like Dan said we should celebrate all year long the tomb is empty he ascended to the father where he sits at his right hand the place of authority where he is now king of all kings lord of lords and he has all authority in heaven and all earth and that king is calling out to you repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in me believe on me he says and if you do that he will make you a new creature you will be glorified one day all these tears all this pain all this suffering will be gone and you can live in eternity with the father and experience all this gospel has to offer it's the best offer that you'll ever receive and God commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel and we would plead with you to do that and do it today

Dan would you mind to close us in prayer sure dear heavenly father we thank you for today for this morning the opportunity that we had to look into your word to hear of your redemption to know of your gospel

God we pray that you would make that a reality in each one of our lives that we would know of your forgiveness of sins that we would hate our sin turn from it look to you find forgiveness and go out and glorify you in our lives by proclaiming that message far and wide by knowing your redemption personally

God we pray that you would be with those who do not know you we pray for a revival in our world for our nation for those overseas we pray that your redemption would become far and wide that the knowledge of the glory of the lord would be covered as would cover the earth as the waters cover the seas

God we pray that you would glorify yourself and we thank you for dying on the cross and raising from the dead we look forward to your return in Jesus name we pray we pray amen amen thank you

Dan for your submission to Christ thank you for your insights thank you Jesus for the cross thank you