Every Spiritual Blessing: Part 1-3

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem.

Here is the third and final part of Pastor Rich's sermon titled, Every Spiritual Blessing. There's a third inference in this. Not only is there preference, an inference of preference, and not only is there an inference of purpose, but there's also an inference of protection. Protection.

Because, why? Because you are His. He looks at you and He says, you are Mine. And if I were to look at My children in a picture, I care for them.

And I want to be their protecting, loving, giving Father. And that's how God looks at us. And the protection here is just with the understanding that it is done. What He has for us, it is done. Our destiny is determined.

It is done. It's not left up to how hard we try or how good we are. From God's infinite transcendent perspective, our journey is complete. Remember, God knows everything right here, right now. He doesn't look down the road of time. God doesn't do that.

He can't. He knows everything. And therefore, in His knowledge, from His perspective, your entire journey of life is done. And how does He see you?

Well, this is what He starts describing. Because the Apostle Paul says, like in Romans 8, for example, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. We've unpacked that a little bit, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.

To what end? Chose us for what? Remember, the inference is preference and purpose and protection. But just as He chose us to be holy and blameless before Him. Just as He chose us in Him to be holy and blameless. This is a perfect reflection of His character. We are, as Paul says in Romans 8, predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

To reflect His perfect life. But it's very interesting. Two words that could very easily be passed over in here. That we should be holy and blameless before Him. That is such a profound word. The word there is katanopian.

Three parts to that word. To see, down, in. From His infinite perspective, He looks down into the core of your being and mine. And what does He see? That we should be holy and without blame before Him.

Katanopian. As He sees down in. So think about this.

Think about this. Your infinite, loving, heavenly Father. Christians, I'm talking to you. He looks down into you. And He looks, He's not looking for the hypocrisy. He's not looking for the superficiality. He's not looking for the faults. But His piercing gaze looks down into you. And He is looking for that delight and that satisfaction that He sees in the perfection of His Son, Jesus.

But this is how God sees you. You need to know your Father this way. He has predestined us to adoption as sons in the adoption there, to adoption as sons in the Roman world. An adopted son had the same rights and privileges as natural sons. You had natural sons from biological birth.

And then you had adopted sons. Who is God's natural son? Not by biological birth, but they have the same essence. And that is Jesus Christ. He is very God of very God. He is the second person of the Trinity. He is His only begotten Son.

He is the natural Son of God. You and I are adopted sons of God. But as we are adopted as sons, we have the same rights and privileges as the natural sons.

Isn't that awesome? We are adopted into that sonship. John says, as many as believed, He gave the right, the authority to become children of God.

And we read it earlier during the early part of the worship. Behold what manner of the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. This is family. This is relationship. Imagine the love that God has lavished on us that He, an infinitely perfectly holy God, can reach down to me and call me His child, whom He cares for deeply and affectionately and has desire for. What is in a family relationship when a father thinks of his child? It's the name.

You share a name. There is a sense of care. There's a sense of protection, a sense of guidance, favor, love, belonging, all of that. And this is how God looks at us. Because He says here, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glory, of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the beloved. Accepted in the beloved.

Who is that? He's speaking of Christ. We are in Christ. He is our element.

He is our identity. As the blessing that God has favored on us with the Son of His love. In Christ we are loved and lavished with goodness. And so just as God takes pleasure in His Son, Jesus, in the same way He takes pleasure in us.

Christians, let me ask you again. Do you know Him that way? Your Heavenly Father, just as He takes pleasure in His Son, Jesus, so He takes pleasure in us. I invite you to know Him that way. The Father delights in you just as He delights in Christ. Why is this? There's two statements that He gives here.

Why is all of this? As He's gushing all of this truth out about God and His disposition toward us and our status in Him. According to verse 5, according to the good pleasure of His will. The good pleasure of His will. This is His desire.

This is what brings Him pleasure. This is the outflow of His goodness. Understand this, God is good. He doesn't just do good, He is good. In His very being He is the definition of good. And so it follows that He should act in this fashion because He is good. And then it says to the praise of the glory of His grace.

Let me unpack that for just a minute. Praise. Praise is translated approval. It is sometimes translated applause. On what occasions, for what reasons do we applaud? Do we clap our hands? We clap our hands when something meaningful has been done. We clap our hands when we see genuine beauty. We clap our hands when we receive pleasure from something. We clap our hands when we recognize a profound accomplishment has been met.

We clap our hands when we recognize goodness. All of those things. So all of these are who God is and what He has lavished on us. Meaning, beauty, pleasure, accomplishment, goodness, all of that. Praise and it deserves our praise and He deserves absolute praise from us.

To the praise of the glory, and this word glory, doksa, it means splendor. Something that is profoundly beautiful. A thing upon which we can gaze that just leaves us in awe. To the praise of the glorious splendor of His grace. And what is grace? It is His goodness. His acts of favor and kindness.

All the good that God has lavished on us. And so, let me paraphrase what the apostle is saying here. That we are to make much of the lavish splendor of His goodness that He has poured out on us. When it's all said and done, when time is done, and you and I are forever with the Lord, here's what happens. The great I Am takes center stage. And believe me, there will be profusion. A gushing extravagance. There will be a cosmic adoration that will make the Super Bowl sound like a walk in the library. Because God is so deserving.

As we conclude our time together today, I want you to consider this. All this that the apostle is pouring out here, in what circumstance did he write this? He was in prison. And Roman prisons were nothing special.

There was nothing delightful about them. What does this tell us? I want you to listen to this place, this application, as we glean from the example of the apostle Paul. First of all, I want you to know God the way He did.

I want you to know God for who He is. Secondly, you can't control most of what happens to you. You know that, right? All of you control freaks? You can't control most of what happens to you. But what can you control?

You can control how you think about it and how you engage it. Remember all of this profusion that is gushing out of the apostle Paul to describe God in His lavish goodness. His disposition toward us and our status in Him. He's writing this chained in a Roman prison. That was beyond His control, but what He could control is how He thought about it and how He engaged it. He loved ones. Let's learn from that.

Let's learn from that. And then I want you to consider God's disposition towards you. You, those of us who are in Christ, when God looks at you, He gets pleasure.

He sees all people of all time in one shot. And when He looks upon you, He looks at you and me with delight and deep affection and care. I want you to know Him that way because that's who you are in Christ. Father, we are so blessed to have a word from you that you have indeed made yourself known to us so that we can know you. Father, rescue us from knowing you inaccurately or inadequately. Rescue us, Father, from simply imagining you according to our imagination. But Father, thank you that you have manifested yourself to us in truth. And may we know you that way, Father. And Lord, I pray that you would take these truths and plant them deep in us and shape and fashion us in the likeness of your Son, the Lord Jesus. Because, Father, we in Christ are the objects of your desire and your pleasure and your delight. Thank you for that. In Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to Delighting Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, lead pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Visit our church website to see upcoming events or to listen to more messages at gbcwinston.com to discover how to live by grace. Tune in with us on weekdays at 10 a.m.