You and I who are a part of the body of Jesus Christ, who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, who are in his church, who have been saved, been born again, are simply responding to the divine decree of the eternal God made before the world began. Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. CS Lewis said that Christians can be like children who would rather make mud pies in a slum than play at a lovely beach. In other words, they may settle for measly joys not realizing there's something much, much better.
The question is, are you doing what CS Lewis described? Are you putting too much focus on earning money and developing your career and building relationships? Things that aren't necessarily wrong, but they don't even compare to the riches Christ offers? How do you take hold of the untold wealth that's yours if you're a Christian? John MacArthur helps you answer that life-changing question in his current series on Grace to You.
It's titled Richer Than You Think. And now here's the lesson. Father, as we approach your word, we are humbled. We feel less than adequate to deal with these grandiose and glorious truths that are beyond us. We are reminded that the secret things belong to the Lord.
We remind you that your ways are higher than our ways. That we cannot understand all things. And yet, Father, we ask that the Spirit of God would give us a measure of understanding for the deep things of the Word. And that's It might be the voice of God that speaks and the power of the Spirit of God who delineates and applies the truth. To that end we seek Thee in this time.
In Christ's name. Amen. We're looking at Ephesians 1. Ephesians chapter 1. We're not going to consider a lengthy passage, but a brief one.
But the depth of the passage demands that we. Dig in. And I hope you have your thinking cap on. You're not going to be able to operate on half of your cylinders this morning. You're going to have to function on a.
All of them because of the depth of what we want to say out of the Word of God. We're looking at verses 4 through 6a of Ephesians 1, and I'll read them just to give you a setting for your thoughts. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him. In love, having predestinated us under the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself. According to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace.
And we'll stop right there. Christians have a common source of life, a common kind of life, and a common destiny. We all came in through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We all possess the same divine nature, partaking of that divine nature, as Peter says. We all are moving to the same ultimate destiny.
The kingdom of God and glory in heaven forever with Christ.
So there is a tremendous basic life unity among believers. We've all been saved the same way for the same destiny and are carried to that destiny by the maintenance of the same common eternal life.
So we are one in a marvelous and unique way. And the message of the book of Ephesians is that we are one in Christ. That's the overriding message. The ramifications of that are discussed in all the chapters of this book. We are one body in Christ.
In fact, he calls us a bride, he calls us a building, but singularly, he calls us here, does the Apostle Paul, the body of Christ, to emphasize our unity. As a body is one body responding to one head, so the church is to be one in response to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a unity in the church that is more than just the unity of a common agreement on a philosophy or a religion. It is the unity of a commonness in life. The common eternal life of God pulses through the soul of every believer.
And we are tied together. 1 Corinthians 6:17, He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Therefore, all that are joined to the Lord are one spirit with one another. The emphasis of Ephesians, then, is that we are a body.
Now, in the theology of the body, which is basically what Paul deals with in the first three chapters of Ephesians, the practice of the body in the last three. But in the theology of the body, Paul begins by taking us into eternity past to see how God designed it. This is like looking at the blueprint. Into eternity we go, we find God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, all three mentioned in the first great paeon of praise that runs through verse 14, all having their part in the master planning of the body of Christ. And we have seen at least initially last time how we are part of that marvelous body.
Look with me for just a moment at chapter 4, verse 13, because of all the verses we discussed last time about the concept of the body, this sums up its. Definition perhaps best. Verse twelve ends. with the term the body of Christ. The body of Christ.
That is the intention of the book of Ephesians to instruct in the area of the body of Christ. Further, it says in 13: The body of Christ can be seen in this manner, really, till we all come in the unity of the faith. That is, there's a basic unity, not in faith, but in the faith. The content of the gospel, there's a basic unity. And of the knowledge of the Son of God, we all come in through the same basic content.
We all come into the knowledge of the same person, the Son of God, but we are moving to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Now I want you to note something. God's purpose for the body is that it would manifest uniformly, totally, completely, corporately. Jesus Christ. That's the intention. We are as a body to manifest Christ in the world.
I call the incarnation body one and the church body two. God manifests in the flesh in Jesus Christ, God manifests in the flesh through his church. We are Christ in the world. We are to manifest Christ. We are corporately to give testimony to Jesus Christ.
And the problem with that, of course, is that if any of us fails, then the corporate testimony is hindered. When someone doesn't function in the area of his spiritual giftedness, when someone doesn't follow through on the responsibilities of fellowship, such as the responsibility to love one another, comfort one another, pray for one another, edify one another, rebuke one another, reprove one another, etc. When we don't do those kinds of things, we cripple the body. Consequently, the manifestation of Christ is untrue and the world does not evaluate properly. Christianity.
All it takes is one person's testimony to undercut the credibility of an entire congregation. You see, it is essential that we understand, beloved, that we are one in Christ. And as we understand the theology of it in the first three chapters, we can then move to the practice of it in the last three. But the foundation is here in these first three chapters. This is the rock bed understanding of our union in the church.
Really important. We are involved. in a manifestation of Jesus Christ individually and corporately. For example, all the gifts that are listed in Romans 12 were true of Jesus Christ and his ministry.
So that what you have in those spiritual gifts is the remanifestation of Christ in the corporate church. We ought to be one in him. It says in 4:13, until we come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, the world should see Jesus Christ in us, composite Christ-likeness.
Now, this tremendous master plan, this tremendous concept by God, this great plan, Paul says, was begun in eternity past. Before time, before creation, before anybody existed. In the free and independent and sovereign will of God, He set the plan. in motion. The body was formed in eternity past.
That's the message of chapter 1, verses 3 to 14. I want you to look at it with me. Chapter 1, verses 3 to 14.
Now we're just taking 4 through 6a because that's where we've begun. Four through six A. After a brief introduction in the first two verses, in which Paul introduces himself and greets them in the common greeting, grace, and peace. He then launches into that great doxology in verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies, in Christ. It's just a doxology, and really he can't help but praise God because of what he's about to say.
You see, it's literally a knockout to Paul that God has designed this entire thing before the world began, and he's a part of it. I mean, I know how I feel when I think somebody likes me. I know how I feel when I know somebody loves me. But to imagine that the eternal God of the universe designed me into a plan before time began is an overwhelming thought. A plan that would ultimately culminate in me living with him in his house forever.
Credible thought. Listen, being a Christian is a super thing. God designed it before the world began. And once Paul gets this doxology rolling in verse 3, he can't stop. And he rolls right on and never puts a period in the Greek sentence until the end of verse 14.
202 words in a row without a period. He just rolls. It's like a snowball going downhill, and it just picks up more glistening glory as it goes. As he thinks about this master plan in eternity.
Now, There are three elements to the master plan. First element is what you'd call election. From verses 4 to 6. The second element is what we call redemption. From verses 6 to 11.
And the third one, inheritance, verses 12 to 14.
So we find then that there are three phases to this master plan. There is God's election, there is the working out of redemption, which results in this incredible inheritance. That's God's plan. Master Plan.
Now, I want us to look at just the first section, the section built around the concept of elections. And I realize that the doctrine of election is a doctrine that's hard to be understood. And we must remember, Deuteronomy 29, 29, secret things belong to the Lord, and Isaiah says that his ways are higher than our ways. We have to rest in that because we're not going to be able to understand this. And I don't want you to get your head scrambled.
I just want you to stay with the biblical text, okay?
So here we go. Seven elements. are here indicated in this concept of election. It has seven aspects or elements. The first one is the method.
the method of election which I call sovereign selection.
Sovereign selection. That is the method. God had a method by which he chose.
Sovereign selection. Verse 4. According, and the according links up with the praise of verse 3. The reason he's praising God in verse 3 is because God is the one who did this. as he hath chosen.
He hath chosen.
Now, there you're introduced to the method by which God formed his body in eternity past. Simple. independent, unaffected, sovereign choice. God simply chose by sovereign will, by sovereign decree, He chose those who were to be the members of His body, totally apart from the will of any man, totally apart from any human consideration, and purely on the basis of His own will. Notice at the end of verse 5: according again to the good pleasure of what?
His will. His will. Verse 9. According to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself. Verse eleven.
according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
Now you get the message, right? God, freely, independently, unaffected by any human work or any human choice, chose. us to be included in his body. Just to reiterate the emphasis here, look with me at the first chapter of the Gospel of John. And verse 11.
John's Gospel chapter 1 verse 11. And you remember that this great statement was said in reference to the rejection of Israel. of their Messiah. Verse 11, he came unto his own and what? His own received him not.
He came unto his own things, and his own people received him not. But. In spite of the majority, there was the minority. As many as received him. To them he gave power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name, and there's the human part of it.
Faith, believing. But look at 13. Who were born? Born again. Not of blood, that is, you're not a Christian because you were born of the Jewish race, right?
Not of blood, you can't inherit it. Nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but what? Yeah. See, salvation is of God. And as many as received received because they believed, because the will of God, in fact, infected their depravity with faith.
It even says in Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves. That even is a gift of God. Saving faith. And so it is that God chooses.
Not according to human will, but according to his own will. The word eklego in verse 4 means to pick out for himself. It's reflexive. God chose for himself. Those who would be a part of his family.
In 2 Timothy 1.9, It says, God who hath saved us, called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, listen to this, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Literally incredible. You and I, who are a part of the body of Jesus Christ, who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, who are in his church, who have been saved, been born again, are simply responding to the divine decree of the eternal God made before the world began. Nobody's a Johnny come lately in the body of Christ. Everybody was master planned in because there is a vital area of responsibility that no one else can fulfill and because there is a unique purpose which God has designed in His own love to place upon you.
Some special and eternal blessing. Yeah. It's all of God. If we had anything to do with it, then verse 3 would say, Blessed be us. Blessed be us.
But we don't. Our praise is to God because He's done it all.
Now, some people will always say, well, John. I don't believe in that. The election stuff. I believe that everybody chooses.
Well, the Bible teaches that too. Jesus said, You will not come unto me that you might have lie. Isaiah said, Come, come and buy, come and drink. Revelation 22, Jesus says, Come, whosoever will, let him come. Romans chapter 10 says, Whosoever believes on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Whosoever everywhere in the Bible. You say, but how can you have God choosing and a bunch of whosoever's? I don't know. I have no idea how you can have them, but you have to have them because they're both in the Bible.
And you let God resolve the problem. But I'll tell you one thing: I don't care what your theological background is, you believe in the sovereignty of God. If you're a Christian, I'll prove it to you. You say, oh, no, I don't. Yeah, you do.
It's easy to prove. You ready for this? Do you pray? Say yes, I pray every day. To whom do you pray?
God. Why?
Well, because God is the source of all good things. See? You believe in the sovereignty of God. Every how many every good and perfect gift how many Every comes down from whom? The Father of lights, in whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning, all of it comes from Him.
And you seek him for it. And in prayer, you're asking for things and you're giving thanks for things. Why?
Because you recognize that God is the source of all these things. You see, prayer for the Christian is not an attempt to con God. It's not to try to force God's hand. It is a humble acknowledgement of dependence on his sovereign will. We pray for somebody who's ill and invariably say, Lord, We'd like so-and-so to be made well, but Your will be done.
We acknowledge he is sovereign. We even were told by Jesus to say this. Give us this day our what? Our daily bread. is even dependent on his sovereignty.
Now, if God is sovereign in all things in our lives, then God is no less sovereign in salvation. And I'll show you two other reasons why I think everybody believes in God's sovereignty. Number one reason is that you thank God for your salvation, right? You don't go to God and say, God, I hope you appreciate the intellect that I have. I hope you realize that of all the options I have chosen you.
You don't say that to God? That's Ridiculous. You didn't save yourself. When you talk to God about your salvation, you thank Him, don't you? Because you know it was him.
I'll tell you another way to look at it. When you love somebody that's not a Christian, And you've presented Christ to them, what do you do? What do you do for that person? You pray for them, don't you? You pray why do you pray for that?
Because you know that the source of salvation is whom? is God. By virtue of prayer in general, by virtue of thanking God for your salvation, by virtue of praying for someone else's salvation, you are constantly acknowledging who is sovereign, you see. You see, you really believe in the sovereignty of God, you just don't know that you do. J.I.
Packer, in his book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, says this: Listen carefully to this. What is true is that all Christians believe in divine sovereignty, but some are not aware they do. and mistakenly imagine and insist that they reject it. What causes this odd state of affairs? This is what he said.
The root cause is the same as in most cases of error in the church. the intrusion of rationalistic speculation, the passion for systematic consistency, a reluctance to recognize the existence of mystery and let God be wiser than men, and the consequent subjecting of Scripture to the supposed demands of human logic. Boy, that's so good. What he's saying is that we can't stand tension. We can't stand a paradise.
We can't say the Bible teaches sovereignty and it also teaches choice. I can't handle it.
So, our perverse mind says we must be like God, so we harmonize in the middle and destroy both. We're really dealing with depravity. And what happens is that you get people who want to systematize the Bible, and they systematize it so it all fits together and what just fits beautifully into their system. And if it doesn't fit the way they want, they explain it a new way and they remove all the mystery, and God is no longer really mysterious in the Word of God. They've reduced it all to a system, and in so doing, they've eliminated much of its truth.
Packer goes on. He says, people see that the Bible teaches man's responsibility for his actions. They do not see how this is consistent with the sovereign lordship of God over those actions. They are not content to let the two truths live side by side as they do in the Scripture, but they jump to the conclusion that in order to uphold the biblical truth of human responsibility, they are bound to reject the equally biblical and equally true doctrine of divine sovereignty and explain away the great number of texts that teach it. The desire to oversimplify the Bible by cutting out the mystery is natural to our perverse minds.
It is not surprising that even good men should fall victim to it, hence this persistent and troublesome dispute. The irony of the situation, however, is that when we ask how the two sides pray, it seems apparent that those who profess to deny God's sovereignty really believe it just as strongly as those who affirm it. People say, well, I just can't believe that God chose everything. But you see, that's just pure speculation because the Bible says he does. You say, well, then how can man possibly have a choice?
Well, I don't know, but he does. And you just let God figure out how that works.
So, the method by which God began the body was sovereign selection.
Now, let me show something to you. There's three kinds of election, and you need to distinguish these in the Bible, or you get confused. We don't have time to go through all the verses on this, but I want to share some of them with you. There are three kinds of election in the Bible. Number one is what's called theocratic election, is what I call theocratic election.
And that is, for example, in Deuteronomy.
Now, theocratic, the theocracy was simply the title given to the nation Israel. Theo, from the word theos, which means God rules. The nation of Israel was ruled by God. There was a theocratic election. That is, God chose a nation for a special place.
Deuteronomy 7, 6. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God has chosen thee to be a special people. God chose a nation. That is theocratic election.
God didn't say, now, all right, I'm going to look around and find the best nation. He says, I didn't choose you because you were the biggest nation. I just designed to set my love upon you. I designed to love you. That was my own free choice.
I chose you as a nation.
Now watch this point. That in no way had any effect on their personal salvation.
Okay? The theocratic election, the choice of the nation of Israel, had nothing to do with the individual's salvation. Just because a person was a Jew did not mean they were a believer in Old Testament times. For example, in Romans 9:6, Paul says, Not all Israel is Israel. Not all those who are Jews are truly Jews.
The Israel of God.
So there was theocratic election. And in a sense, even within the election of the nation, there was an election of those who would be saved. And that's what Jesus meant in Matthew, where he says, Many are called, but what? Few are chosen. Within theocratic election, you have specific election to salvation.
There's a second kind of election I want to mention, and that's what I call vocational election. Vocational. There are some times when God, just on his own sovereign choice, chooses a certain person or persons to do a specific task. That also is unrelated to salvation. The first illustration of it is in Deuteronomy 18, where God chose the Levites out of Israel to be his priests.
Because you were a Levite did not necessitate the fact that you were granted absolutely salvation. That was task choice. God called the Levites to a task choice. That was vocational election. Same is true in the New Testament where Jesus called 12 apostles.
He called 12 of them to a task. Only 11 of them were called to salvation. You see the difference? Judas was not.
So there was vocational Election. Jesus said in John 15:16, You have not chosen me, but what? I have chosen you. And he wasn't talking about salvation there. He was talking about the task of being a disciple or an apostle.
This has nothing to do with salvation. But now you come to the third one, and that's salvational election. And this is the kind that you find in Ephesians 1. He has chosen us, not in a theocratic way, not in a vocational way, but in a personal way, to come to know him. He has chosen us.
You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. The title of John's current study, Richer Than You Think.
Now, today John talked about the inheritance of every believer. Certainly, when God adopts someone into His family, He saves them from plenty of heartache here and now. But a lot of believers get stuck focusing on present circumstances and they forget what's ahead. For Christians, the best truly is yet to come. Let's hear some of John's thoughts on that.
I think they're helpful. In the culture today, even in evangelicalism, it's hard to get Christians to really believe that the best is yet to come. You know, there's a very popular book called Your Best Life Now. You know, I look at that title and it's written by uh a a pastor. And I say wait a minute.
The only way this is my best life now is if I'm going to hell. This is not my best life now. My best life is yet to come. And eye hasn't seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love Him. Christians need to be far more interested in the glory of heaven.
I want to tell you about a book called The Glory of Heaven. The truth about heaven, angels, eternal life. I debunk all the false claims of those people who've said they've gone to heaven, came back, reported all kinds of bizarre things.
So we debunk the lies about heaven and then move into the Word of God to tell the truth about heaven. The glory of heaven is really a helpful, thoughtful gift to every believer who is headed there in the end. This is where you're going to be forever. You need to know all you can about it. And people don't need to be led astray by false claims.
That's right, friend. You need to have a clear picture of heaven. John's book called The Glory of Heaven shows you encouraging truth about what you'll do in heaven, what your new body will be like there, and why you should eagerly anticipate your future home. Get your copy when you contact us today. To order, call 80055 Grace, which translates to 800-554-7223, or visit our website, gty.org.
The glory of heaven is reasonably priced and shipping is free. There are plenty of books about heaven that are filled with fictional accounts about what's there. John MacArthur critiques those claims and shows you what the Bible really teaches about your glorious future home. Again, order by calling 800-55 GRACE or go to gty.org. And let me remind you that Grace to You is listener supported.
When you pray for us and support us financially, you're helping us reach people around the world with the life-changing truth of God's Word. You can mail your tax-deductible gift to Grace2U. P.O. Box 4000. Panorama City, California.
91412. You can also make a donation by phone. Call us at 800-55 GRACE. or go to our website gty.org.
Now for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Make sure you're here tomorrow when John MacArthur continues showing you your riches in Christ and how to enjoy them to the fullest. Don't miss the next 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth. one verse at a time. on grace to you.
