Ten Reasons to Give God Praise, Part 2

Today from Chuck Swindoll. You and I on the slave block were bound to Satan and his demons. They had their dominating presence in our lives, and we obeyed them whether we knew we were doing it or not. When Christ died, his blood washed away the sins and took away the dominating power of Satan, and through the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, freed us to obey, gave us the strength to walk in the light, which we were never able to do before. The Apostle Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians with a glowing preamble about the goodness of God. And rather than race through his generous introduction, Chuck Swindoll will help us absorb the magnitude of these spiritual blessings. On this Tuesday edition of Insight for Living, we'll pick up our study in Ephesians chapter 1. In the event you missed Monday's program, Chuck begins with a brief summary about the lavish gifts God has given to his children and how these blessings impact us today.

Chuck titled today's message, Ten Reasons to Give God Praise. In verses 3 through 6, we're moved to eternity past, before there was ever matter, light, darkness, time, earth, living things, the planets, the world that we call familiar. All of that was not there then. And in the eternal ages, where there was only the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit, stay with me, Father, Son, and Spirit, there was the arrangement of things as they would run their course on this earth when time began. And in fact, the arrangement of events in eternity past were planned, they were initiated by the Father, they were implemented by the Son, and they were empowered by the Spirit. In the Father's mind is the initiating of the events of life as they will unfold, especially regarding spiritual things. The Son was dispatched from heaven to earth to become the sacrifice for sin.

The Lamb of God, Mary's little lamb, who would take away the sins of the world by his blood, he implemented the plan the Father initiated. And the Spirit of God empowers this work as it moves right on through time unto the ultimate fulfillment in glory, when we will stand before him face to face. Ephesians 1 is about all of that. The Father initiating, the Son implementing, and the Spirit empowering. What I find in this grand doxology, and what I call this, is ten reasons to give God praise.

The first is in verse 3, we looked at it earlier. Look at the first in God's eulogy, because he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. That's why I praise him. He blesses me. I don't bless him. He blesses us. And notice the blessings are in Christ in the heavenlies. Warren Wiersbe writes, But that executive chair represents the sphere of his life and power. No matter where he is, he is the president, because only he has the privilege of sitting at that desk. Likewise, with the Christian, no matter where he may be on this earth, he is seated in the heavenlies with Jesus Christ, and this is the basis of his life and power.

Isn't that great? Positionally, our Heavenly Father sees his children as in the Son, and therefore all the blessings he set aside for the Son, because we are seated in Christ, are ours to claim and live in the power of. Praise reason number 2 is in verse 4. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him.

Because he has chosen us. I would venture to say it's been a long time since you were said in your prayer to the Lord, I praise you for choosing me. Sometimes we think as partners of our mates, how grateful we are that they chose us. I frequently will say that regarding my wife, and like many of you men, I married way above my head. And I sometimes think as I see her in unguarded moments, I think, hi, thank you Father for her saying yes to me. See, I got her so young that she just didn't know better.

So glad she didn't know then what she knows now. Thank you for her saying yes, for choosing me. And yet, this is not about an earthly mate, this is about a heavenly partnership. He chose us.

Isn't that remarkable? He slipped his hand into the ranks of humanity, and he chose you. I could even add for you, you of all people, me of all people. He chose you and me.

And he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. You say, I don't get it. Well, welcome to the club. Nobody gets it.

You just believe it. It's an eternity past. There wasn't even time in existence. There was no earth. There wasn't even matter. And in that eternal state, the Father who initiates the plan, looked at the Son in today's terms, in our words, he looked at the Son, he said, I choose her to be in you.

I choose him to be in you. And the goal of it is that we would be holy and blameless before him. When she was young, Victoria was shielded from the fact that she would be the next ruling monarch of England, lest this knowledge spoil her. When her teacher finally did let her discover for herself that she would one day be Queen of England, Victoria's response was interesting. She said, then I will be good. Then I will be good. Her life would be controlled by her position.

No matter where she was, Victoria was governed by the fact that she sat on the throne of England. Realizing that you and I have been chosen, what a great response. Then I will live for him. Then I will live in this world in a way that is holy and blameless before him. Now we come to the third reason to praise him, and that is because we have been predestined. If you think being chosen was deep, hang on. Predestined. Don't miss the first two words that come at the end of verse four.

They go with verse five. In love, he predestined us to adoption. The motivation of the act is love. The result of the act is adoption.

You see, Jesus is God's son by nature, being sinless. We are God's sons and daughters by adoption. He walked through the slave market of sin, and he stopped and looked into our sad eyes and saw our pathetic, tragic situation before we were ever in existence, and he said, you're mine. You're mine. You will be mine.

You're mine. In Roman law, which is part of Paul's background writing here, adopted children, just like in American law, adopted children have all the rights and privileges of biological children, and so it is here. We are predestined, and as adopted children, we have the same rights and privileges as the son who is a part of the father, that great thought.

When were we adopted? When we believed, but could we have not believed? Not if we were chosen. God's irresistible working in our lives spiritually guaranteed the fulfillment of God's sovereign plan.

You say, I can't get this straight. I mean, we've got human responsibility. We've got God's elective powers. We have our will, and we have the father's choice. I mean, explain that further. Well, I like the way one seminary prof put it. Try to explain election, and you may lose your mind, but try to explain it away, and you may lose your soul, to which one wag responded, not if I'm among the elect. Two rails form the same track.

Now stay with me. Two rails form the same track. Without it, there's a collision. There's a terrible wreck.

It won't work. They must be parallel, and they never come together. Two great truths are presented in the scriptures. The responsibility of humanity to believe, and God's sovereign choice. Someone has put it this way. When you walk into the portals of heaven, you will see written, whosoever will may come when you walk through, and you look back, you will see elect from the foundation of the world. From my perspective, I see it as a need to respond to the gospel, and to present the gospel to as many as I can. From God's perspective, it is all planned, and he sees it before the event.

It is as if a finished fact accepted. You say, well, Chuck, sounds to me like one of Paul's axes. He falls into this every once in a while. Romans 9, Ephesians 1, this is sort of Pauline. Well, would it help if I quoted Jesus? Some of you would say, no, it wouldn't help even if I quoted Jesus.

Do I care? I am going to turn with you to John chapter 15, verse 16. If you carry a red letter Bible, you will see it in red. These are the words of Jesus, and they'll be familiar.

You may not have known where they were found, but you may have quoted them. John 15, 16 should be in the margin of Ephesians 1, 5. John 15, 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain. Let's understand who is initiating this.

It's the Father. Let's put the Father back where he belongs in our minds, and that's enthroned, in charge, and sovereign. Does that mean I don't have to respond?

Did I say that? I am responsible as an individual upon hearing the good news of Christ to respond. The point is I cannot resist it if God has chosen me.

I like the way Charles Spurgeon put it. He said, if God had revealed to me that he put a wide yellow stripe down the back of all human beings who are elect, I would spend my days walking the streets of London lifting up shirt tails. But because he did not, I preach whosoever will may come.

That's good enough for me. God's eulogy continues. He has chosen us. He has predestined us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will.

Don't miss that. It will help you understand the full nature of God. Some of you, I can feel it, even if you haven't said anything back to me, I can feel a resistance. I resisted this for years. I saw it as a cold and uncaring doctrine. I saw it as a God who, almost in a cavalier fashion, nope, not him, not her. The others, go to hell, was the kind of the thing that I wrestled with. To my amazement, I never found in the scriptures where he predestined some to hell.

I found the kind intention of his will is to predestine us to adoption as sons, and I leave it at that. The lake of fire was not first created for men and women, it was created for the devil and his angels. The consequence of not believing is an eternity in the lake of fire which burns and is never quenched.

Horrible thought. It'll keep you awake at night, I know. But the focus is not on the consequence, it is on the opportunity to believe. And what a wonderful, wonderful doctrine this is, to know that it rests with God. I'll tell you as a preacher, it's a great thing for me to remember. I used to feel the necessity to make people believe, to press them to a decision, even at times to make a fool of myself, and to embarrass them if they didn't.

It was a great moment when I realized my responsibility is to declare the truth. It's God's responsibility to bring you to himself. And you will come. You will come. He will defend his truth. Some of you say, I'm not coming. I love to meet people like that, and then to talk to them a few years later and to hear the humbling story of how God broke them and brought them to himself.

Don't tell me you're going to stand up against Almighty God who made you. We're giving him praise for this wonderful eulogy. We give him praise, verse 7, that he has redeemed us. Look at the word.

Put in the margin of your Bible, if you like, taking notes. To purchase and set free by paying a price. That's what redeem means. To purchase and set free by paying a price. The price is sometimes called a ransom.

A ransom. You and I were born not right with God, but wrong before God. You and I were enslaved.

Face it. We were slaves to sin. We walked our own way. We found ourselves hopelessly and helplessly unable to change our lifestyle.

We made those great resolutions on the 1st of January, year after year, and by about the 3rd, or maybe the evening of the 2nd, we were already breaking or weakening in our resolution. We don't have the power to do that. We're unable in ourselves to give us the power. Remember, it's the Spirit who empowers this kind of life. God the Father initiates, God the Son implements, and the Spirit empowers this kind of thing. It's the Spirit at work in your life which you cannot resist. It's the Spirit's leading in this that the Father has initiated, and it's all happened because the Son has redeemed us.

Look at how it's worded. In him, we have redemption through his blood. We have redemption through his blood. Hold your place and look at 1 Peter 1, verse 18. 1 Peter, back toward the end of your Bible, chapter 1, verse 18, and I'm going to show you the value of the blood. Knowing that you were not redeemed, Peter uses the same word.

To purchase and set free by the paying of a price, knowing that you were not purchased and set free. With perishable things like silver and gold, from your futile way of life, inherited from your forefathers, but you were redeemed with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless of Christ, the blood of Christ. Years ago, there were those who slipped into the message of evangelical Christianity, or as it was then called, fundamental Christianity, and they said, if you talk about the blood, it's a slaughterhouse religion. And they played down the role of the blood. They said, you shouldn't use the word blood. And in liberal churches today, you won't find the word blood in any of the hymns. You won't find the word blood in any of the versions of the Bible that they use. Because the blood is offensive.

It's slaughterhouse talk. But I will tell you, according to the Scriptures, blood appears almost from the beginning of the book and takes all the way through it, because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiving of sin. Blood is the greatest detergent eternally known to God.

It alone will wash away your sins. We are redeemed through His blood, and for this we give Him praise. Number five, because He has forgiven us our transgressions. Look at the end of verse seven. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

I love it. The forgiveness of our trespasses. Not most of them.

Not all, but the very worst. All of them. Past, present, future, forgiven. Forgiven.

Is there any word better? Forgiven. Redemption covers three areas, the paying of a ransom, the removing of a curse, and the release from a bondage. You and I on the slave block were bound to Satan and his demons. They had their dominating presence in our lives, and we obeyed them whether we knew we were doing it or not. When Christ died, His blood washed away the sins and took away the dominating power of Satan, and through the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, freed us to obey.

Gave us the willingness and the strength to walk in the light, which we were never able to do before. Psalm 103 begins to list all the blessings of God, and He says He forgives you all your trespasses. And a little later says, as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed your transgressions from you. You know what that says? It says you don't have to live in shame. You don't have to live in guilt.

They're removed. They're forgiven. My sister Lucy asked me on one occasion, what's the best feeling you know of in all of life? And I said, accomplishment.

Sounds like a driven neurotic, doesn't it? Accomplishment. I like finishing.

I like getting it done. She said, that's a good feeling. It's not my favorite. I said, what's your favorite? She said, relief.

I think she's right. Relief. When I'm sick being relieved of the fever, when I'm lost being relieved of the sense of lostness, I found my way. When I am lonely, the relief of loneliness by a companion. When I'm without hope, the relief of a savior.

Isn't that great? Oh man. Forgiveness relieves me of my sin. My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross.

I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul, writes the songwriter. John Bunyan wrote as he pictured Christian on that journey to the celestial city, the narrow path, finding his way through the wicket gate, he came to the precipice and he looked across the precipice and he was carrying this burden on his back and he looked across and he saw the cross and he saw the empty tomb and he noticed suddenly as he believed that the burden broke and the chains that held it to him snapped and Bunyan wrote, thus far did I come burdened with my sin, nor could aught ease the grief that I was in till I came hither.

What a place is this. Must here be the beginning of my bliss? Must here the burden fall from off my back?

Must here the chains that bound it to me crack? Blessed cross, blessed sepulcher, blessed rather be the man put to shame for me. That's us. Through the wicket gate to the place of truth we stand on the precipice and there's no one on the cross and there's no one in the tomb because the price has been paid and the son has been raised and we are freed from the sin that once held us captive. You're listening to the voice of Chuck Swindoll. He's titled today's message, Ten Reasons to Give God Praise. To learn more about Chuck or this ministry, be sure to visit us online at insightworld.org.

When originally presented, this message was nearly an hour in length, but in order to share the entire presentation with you, we needed three programs to do so. So please keep listening to hear all ten reasons to give God praise. To deepen your engagement with Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Insight for Living has posted free study notes online filled with helpful details from Chuck and designed to be interactive.

You can write your own personal notes directly into the study notes online or print out the PDF and keep a permanent copy. You'll find the Searching the Scriptures study notes for becoming a people of grace at insight.org slash studies. Chuck's Bible teaching on your station and the Bible study tools we provide are made possible through your voluntary donations.

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Or you can also give online by going to insight.org slash donate. I'm Dave Spiker inviting you to join us again tomorrow when Chuck Swindoll offers 10 reasons to give God praise right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Ten Reasons to Give God Praise, was copyrighted in 2000, 2001, 2008, and 2009. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.