Mystery #1: We are Chosen

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. In Christ we have the assurance of all of God's favor and every spiritual blessing. There's nobody else to appease. Christ is at the top and he is on our side. In him we have every spiritual blessing. There's nothing left that he could promise to us that he has not already given to us in Christ.

When a family is looking into adoption there are lots of factors to take into consideration. But thankfully throughout scripture God repeatedly shows us that he's willing to do whatever it takes to adopt us as his children. Today on Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer we'll learn the lengths that God went to in order to make us his own. It's part of our new teaching series called Mystery and Clarity. But before we get started I wanted to encourage you to stay tuned until the end of the program today to learn about our new Bible study that goes along with this new teaching on the program.

Now here's Pastor J.D. in the book of Ephesians chapter 1 with a message he's titled Mystery Number One We Are Chosen. We are going to talk today about the fact that God has chosen you from all of eternity to be his child and the rich blessing that that fact is supposed to bring into your life. And it's going to be kind of difficult honestly for some of you because this biblical teaching raises all kinds of questions. You know you're going to say like why did God choose me and why didn't God choose everybody and doesn't the Bible teach free will and these are all great questions.

But here's what I need you to do. I need you for just a little while to turn off those objections because I want to teach you today as a pastor not as an apologist or a defender of Christian doctrines. This is one of the richest doctrines of the Bible and it will bring more meaning and more comfort and more stability into your life than just about any other.

That's why Paul starts the book of Ephesians with it. I'm going to teach the scriptures to you just as they are written. Honest really there's not going to be a whole lot of interpretation or a whole lot of opinion mixed in here. I'm just going to show you what they say and I would like to ask you here's your part of this deal. I'd like to ask you just to take this stuff at face value and simply assume that the Bible means what it says. Now you say well but what about my objections?

Listen there is nothing wrong with your questions. God gave us our inquisitive minds and he wants us to use them. God is not threatened by our questions and he invites us to ask them. But you see there are certain things that God reveals to us about himself and his plan that blow our minds. Of course we're talking about God here and when the infinite almighty God when you're dealing with that subject of course there are things that make us stand back overwhelmed with awe and a sense of mystery.

So what do we do with our objections and what do you do with those? Well we could take a cue here from none other than theologian John Calvin. John Calvin's favorite verse was Deuteronomy 29 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law. What that means is that there are things that God has revealed to us about himself which we are to hold on to and obey. And then there are secret things that God has not enabled us for whatever reason to see at this point.

Maybe we couldn't handle it or maybe we're just not smart enough. And while we are free to ask questions about God we should never let those questions make us doubt or disobey the things that God has revealed to us clearly. Does that make sense? So God says that if we are saved it's because God chose us and drew us to himself but we also know that God loves all men and desires all to be saved and that whosoever will may come. And sometimes we just have to say I'm not sure how they work out but I believe they're both true because both are revealed. Or think about another difficult really difficult area of Christian doctrine. The Trinity. Jews for three thousand years believed there was only one God.

Then Jesus shows up and he says I've been sent from God and I'm also God himself. And his disciples are like what does that mean that there are two gods and that we were wrong all those years about there only being one God. No you were right there is only one God. Then you were not God because you said you were sent from God. No that's true too.

They're both true. There's only one God and I am that God even though I'm sent from God and separate from the Father. The Apostle Peter's mind you know just completely explodes. And then Jesus says you can feel free to try and resolve all that but what you can't deny what you can't do is deny any of what has been revealed. God is one and I am God and I am sent from the Father and separate from the Father.

Okay have fun with that one I'm going back to my Father who is actually me. All right now later Christians express this tension as the Trinity. One God in three persons. Do any of us really understand that? Not really but we know that there's only one God and that Jesus is God but somehow the Son of God is separate from God the Father.

Well see that's similar to what we have to do here. The Bible teaches that God chose me before the foundation of the world. It also teaches me that God loves the whole world and whosoever will may come. And again I'm not sure how all that fits together but for now I will hold them in tension and I'll believe them both. By the way please understand that I am not saying they are illogical or contradictory just that they may be beyond the grasp of our finite minds. You see what you're not allowed to do is say well I just don't agree with this or I don't understand it and so I won't believe it. When I was in college I was part of a Bible study that had a like different people who rotated through teaching and I remember one guy got up to teach one evening and and he read this passage and he was working his way through it and he reads a verse and then just says I don't really agree with this verse and just moves on to the next one. And I kept waiting on like the other shoe to drop like you know what's the twist here that was it he just didn't agree with the verse and so he was going to ignore it.

I was like you can't do that right God did not give us that option you can't do that here either. If this is the word of God we have to understand that there are many things that are boggling to our minds and we have to humble ourselves before them. Let me share with you real quick a chapter that I've memorized recently that has brought so much peace into my life.

Psalm 131 oh Lord David says my heart is not lifted up my eyes are not raised too high I do not occupy myself with things that are too great or too marvelous for me but I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother. What that's saying is that there's a time to question and there's a time just to believe there's a time to sit silently before the father and just rest that he is God and that what he says about himself and me and the world are true. You see in some ways in relation to God this chapter says we're like kids there are many things I tell my kids that they can't understand. Daddy why can't the newborn baby take a bath with us?

Why can't I play with the hair dryer and the tub? And sometimes I just have to say baby there's just some things you can't grasp yet and for now I need you just to trust and obey me as your daddy and shut up. Now anybody in here who has kids we get that as parents sometimes our kids just need to trust us because our understanding of the world our understanding of the world is so much greater than theirs. Let me ask you this just logically which do you think is greater the gap between my four-year-old's understanding and my understanding of the world or the gap between my understanding and God's? Of course the gap between mine and God's so there's a time just to rest in God's truth even when you can't put it all together and some of the greatest blessings come from knowing when and how to question and when to simply rest and trust. So here is what I'm asking if you believe this book is the word of God I want you just for a little while to turn off your objections and just listen. I want to as a pastor show you what wonderful comfort this truth is to bring into your life. Later you can go back and try to reconcile everything. Here's a little warning the smarter you are the harder this is going to be for you.

If you're dumb you're going to be like oh yeah this all makes sense okay and if you're smart you're going to ask questions and if you hear something today that totally trips you up and you can't suspend it just put that in the 80% of stuff you don't remember from my messages that I explained last week all right. And hey listen if you don't believe this book is the word of God I want you to at least be open to the fact that maybe this explains a lot of what has been going on in your life and maybe even stand back with us and say who else could have revealed this but God because no human being would ever write stuff like this. As a pastor I will tell you that the longer that I'm in ministry the more central and the more precious this doctrine becomes to me in every way. If you get this I promise you this will add more strength and more comfort to your life than just about anything else you believe and it will drive you to worship at a new depth. After today you will say wow I have never understood how much God did for me in salvation.

You ready? I am about to unload on you all right. After I get done some of you are going to feel like you have stared at the theological sun for too long and your spiritual eyes are going to burn and you're going to be able to see for days. All right so here we go verse three is where we will begin. Blessed be Paul says the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

This is a pretty stunning promise to the Ephesians. The city of Ephesus as I explained last week was obsessed with the spirit world. They believed in different spirit beings that occupied different levels of heaven and you had to keep the various spiritual powers happy if you wanted your life to go well. If something was wrong in one area of your life it's because the spirit over that area was ticked off at you and you needed to do something to appease them.

Now don't just see that as something that people in the really old times and ancient days believed. Today people refer to it as karma. Some of us our lives have gone wrong and we wonder what we're being repaid for or something goes wrong in your life and you conclude that God must be punishing you for something. It is a terrible spiritual bondage Paul knows because you're always wondering how karma or how God feels about you. To those people and to us Paul makes this staggering and liberating assertion that in Christ who sits at the highest of the heavens we have the assurance of all of God's favor and every spiritual blessing.

There's nobody else to appease. Christ is at the top and he is on our side. In him we have every spiritual blessing. There's nothing left that he could promise to us that he has not already given to us in Christ. What's more Paul is going to show you in these next 11 verses which make up by the way one sentence in Greek. That every member of the trinity is now working for your salvation and for your good. In the first three verses he explains to you that the father planned your salvation. Then in verse seven that the son accomplished your salvation. Then in the last three verses that the Holy Spirit brings about your salvation in your heart. From start to finish your salvation has been accomplished by God he says.

Did you let that sink in before we move on? There is nothing that you could hope for more from God right now than you already have in Christ. He could not love you more than he does right now. He could not be more for you than he is right now.

He could not be working more on your behalf than he is right now. Every member of the trinity is at work for you and in you and he has employed every molecule of the universe in service of that. And Paul says here's how you can know that.

Here's how you can know that. Verse four even as in Greek that really ought to be translated as because. You can know that every blessing is yours because he chose us in him. There's your word right there. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. Here it is.

You ready? It's an awesome thought. Before the world was ever established God knew you and loved you. There has never been a time when God did not know about you and never been a time where he has not loved you.

Has it ever dawned on you that nothing has ever dawned on God? For as long as God has been in existence he has cherished you and planned to redeem and save you. You see a lot of people think this verse means that God simply knew beforehand who would choose him and then those are the ones he predestined for salvation. But that's not what this verse says. It says he set his love on you and chose you before there was ever a you before you were even a twinkle in your daddy's eye.

From verse three when your salvation begins to verse 14 when it's all over God is the primary one driving the action. You say well why did he choose me? What was it about me? Did God see that I was going to make a great Christian? And so he said man this guy's going to be awesome. Plus he's a great musician.

Man I got to have that guy on my team. No. In fact when God was explaining to Israel why he chose them he said this Deuteronomy 7. It's not because you were more numbered than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you. In other words I didn't look at you and thought man there's a lot of them and man they're really good at war and they're really good and they're talented and I got to have those people. No you were the fewest of all the peoples in every way. Just because the Lord loved you that's why he chose you. You say well I don't know maybe I wasn't as wicked as other people and God knew that deep down I had a good heart and if he just gave me the right chance I would really thrive. Again in Deuteronomy God says to Israel know therefore that the Lord your God is not giving you this land to possess because of your righteousness because you are a stubborn people.

He's like it ain't your good heart. Actually you were more stubborn than everybody else. Well then what was it?

What was it? You see that phrase in 7-8 that we just went over in Deuteronomy? Just because the Lord loved you. As Paul says in verse 5 of Ephesians 1 it was according to the purpose of his will. The point is that God's choice of us was not something we had in any way earned it was all grace. You say well well how's it fair that God chose us and not others? That's a good question and one I'm not going to answer today because I told you in the beginning that that's not my purpose in this message.

Again for now I'm just asking that you suspend that and let me talk to you as a pastor but I will say this. Before you and I start talking about what is fair we should remember that what was fair was that God not choose any of us. We as a race have chosen to reject God and for us to have to live with the results of that rejection that's what's fair. What we rightfully deserve is judgment and death and the fact that God chose any of us to redeem us is sheer unmerited grace.

And to be honest the reason that this whole discussion bothers so many of us is because deep down we don't really think we're worthy of judgment as a race. We still think God owes us salvation and that's just not true. You say well well God chose me but didn't that violate my choice? You know like if one of you single guys walked up to some girl here and you're like I'm a Calvinist dater and I've chosen you to be my wife. You did not choose me but I chose you and I've ordained you to be my bride.

I would produce a restraining order okay. You say wouldn't that like what's happening here like God forces us to love him like we're some kind of mail order bride or something. No the Bible says his choice is never against our will but his choice is always fully consistent with our will. The scripture says that all those who come to God freely choose to as Jesus often said whosoever will may come if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink.

You say well then why does it say that God chose us first? Jesus explained it in John 6 44. Look at this no man can come to me unless the father draws him. Greek scholars point out that the Greek word for draw there hulkuo carries the idea of this insatiable hunger almost an irresistible force. The image of a desperately hungry man being drawn to food. That's what God did to you.

God created a hunger in you to know Jesus and that hunger drew you to Jesus. You see our problem is not that we can't choose God. Our problem is that we don't want to choose God.

Our chooser works fine. It's our wanter that's all out of whack. Ephesians 2 1 says that without the Holy Spirit we are dead in our sin. And what that means is that we don't desire God we desire death. Spiritual death we desire sin.

We love sin and rebellion and independence. So God changes our hearts so that we begin to want God. He wakes us up and lets us see how wicked sin is. How glorious and how desirable God is and how insane it is to oppose God.

When that happens to you that is all the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart. Here's how the Bible describes it in the ministry of Paul. Acts 16 talking about Lydia. It says the Lord, watch this, opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

You see that? She chose to pay attention because she was interested. And why was she interested? Because God had opened her heart.

Keep reading. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. There's another key word, predestined. We are predestined verse 5 says for adoption. I got some friends here at our church who have undertaken the wonderful ministry of adoption and they've told me that when you walk into that place where you see your child as an infant for the first time there's this immediate and overwhelming sense of love that just begins to gush up out of your heart for that child. You're going to take them into your family. They're going to grow up with your name as your children.

They're going to become heirs of your wealth. That's what Jesus did to us. He walked into the orphanage of sin and said that one.

I'm going to give that one everything. Down in verse 12 Paul says that we were predestined to become people to the praise of his glory. You see when you adopt one of the things that you do is you teach the adopted child your values. That's what God did. In predestining us to be sons and daughters God determined that he would make us into people who reflected his values. People whose lives would bring him glory. Verse 7 keep reading. In him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us and all wisdom and insight. Let's focus really quick on that word redemption in verse 7 for just a minute.

You see here's where Jesus takes over. The father planned our salvation now Jesus comes and accomplishes it. Jesus came to earth and redeemed us. What Paul is trying to show you is that Jesus came and purchased your salvation in its entirety all at once. You see a lot of people think that salvation is basically forgiveness. You say God I'm sorry for my sin and he says okay okay and then God forgives you.

But it is so much more than forgiveness. Imagine if when you became a Christian God only forgave you. That would last until you sinned again and then you would need to be forgiven again. Your relationship with God would always be hanging by a thread and the only times you would be sure that you were going to heaven would be when you were at the moment sinless.

Which for me would last in about 15 second intervals and then I would need to be saved again. If that were the case none of us would ever make it to heaven. You see that's not what Jesus did. Jesus did not forgive us. He redeemed us.

He paid the full price in its entirety and settled the score for our salvation. This has been a thought-provoking look at the first chapter of the book of Ephesians from Pastor J.D. Greer on Summit Life. To hear this message again or to listen again to the first message in this study visit us online at jdgreer.com. This week we launched a brand new resource that aligns perfectly with our teaching here on the program throughout the book of Ephesians. It's a nine-part Bible study called Mystery and Clarity and J.D. I know you have a specific aim in mind so what do you hope listeners will take away from this Bible study? My hope is that this study is going to take you deeper into something that you can never really even get anywhere close to the bottom of. I mean Peter says that angels still long to look into the things of the gospel. They stare with wonder at it.

How do you impress an angel? That love is something Paul has just enraptured with in the book of Ephesians. If there were ever a book of the Bible where you could benefit from some tools that would would slow you down and take you a little deeper it's the book of Ephesians. So every session of this nine-part study is gonna is gonna slow you down and take you deeper and help you take these transforming truths and root them in your heart.

Every session includes a new component for us and that's scripture memory along with commentary, study questions, personal application and a prayer guide that might be the most important part as you as you pray these things into reality in your life. We'd love for you to to reserve your copy. You can access that today at jdgrier.com.

If you'd like to get deeper with this topic we'd love to If you'd like to get deeper with this topic we'd love to get you a copy of this new resource Mystery and Clarity the book of Ephesians. You can request your copy today to start saturating yourself in the truth of God's love for you. We'll send you a copy when you donate to support this ministry at the suggested level of $25 or more. Call 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220 or give and request the book online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us tomorrow as we continue this message titled Mystery Number One, We Are Chosen. We'll see you right here Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.