This morning's scripture reading is from the book of Ephesians chapter 1 verses 1 through 14. Let's read God's word Ephesians chapter 1 1 through 14 Paul and Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints in Ephesus the faithful in Christ Jesus Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons Through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace Which he has freely given us in the one he loves In him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace That he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure Which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head even Christ In him we were also chosen having been predestined According to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will In order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory And you also also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation Having believed you are marked in him with a seal the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit Guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory This is the word of the Lord I want you to think about a date with me The date was January the 9th 2009 It was a Friday and on that day a man woke up early in the morning and went to his computer And he went to Google trends and asked What was the number one search item on Google that morning again the date Friday January the 9th 2009 Google search what was the number one Google search item in America that morning Here it is John 316 That was more popular than any other Google search done on Friday January the 9th Why do you suppose people Google searched John 316? It was because on the previous night January the 8th 2009 The Florida Gators met the Oklahoma Sooners in the BCS championship football game and 1 24 or 14 You need to celebrate Gator fans You need to celebrate But Tim Tibo Had put on his eye black under his eyes John on one eye and 316 under the other eye And millions upon millions of people all around the world saw John 316 went to their computers the next day and searched what in the world Does John 316 say? Now on the one hand we can celebrate this morning the fact that millions upon millions of people read the gospel They looked at John 316 I mean forgot so a lot of the world that he gave his one and only son and so on And we can rejoice that that was done and that message went around the globe on January the 9th 2009 But on the other hand Isn't it a telling critique of the state of things today that millions and millions of people had to do a Google search To find out what John 316 says If they don't know John 316 What else don't they know? A lot J. Leno on the tonight show one night went around you know how he does this He took the microphone and went around the studio audience asking people what they knew about the Bible He said name one of the 10 Commandments Nobody in the studio audience could name one of the 10 Commandments But one guy spoke up and said God helps those who help themselves He asked the studio audience to name one of the apostles Nobody in the audience knew what an apostle was Then he said name the four Beatles And instantly hands went up John Paul, George Ringo Somebody has said that Americans love their Bibles So much so that they keep them in pristine, unopened condition And that would be true Well here at UPC we have a mission The mission is often pictured in our literature with hands Hands going up knowing God Hands greeting one another growing together hands going out serving others Knowing God is part of our mission In order to know God what do we do? We ask you to sit every Sunday morning for a 30 to 40 minute sermon and listen to the word of God explain We ask you to go to Sunday school or to belong to a D group or attend a Bible study or teach one of those things We ask you to be involved in those kinds of knowing God activities Why? Why do we want you to know God? Well because the more you know God the freer you will be And the freer you are the better you will live and love and think and play And so one of our ministry goals as a church as you've heard before is to equip people with biblical and theological literacy Literacy because as we've seen this morning that our culture is fairly biblically illiterate And so in order to turn the tide of our culture we at our church really value biblical literacy knowing your Bible knowing theology And so for the next 7 weeks we're going to do exactly that This series is going to be kind of a knowing God series And we want to equip you to know the Bible better and we're going to dig into some deep stuff, some deep theology We're using as our textbook the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians from which Dennis read a moment ago We're going to spend 7 weeks in Ephesians, we're not going to look chapter by chapter verse by verse But rather we've chosen 7 really huge doctrinal things that is foundational truths That we believe every Christian really needs to understand and know and be able to articulate So today we're going to start with number 1 and it's found right here in the first chapter of the book of Ephesians And I want to introduce it to you this way What if you believed that God really is in charge?
What if you really believed that God is in control? That the events of your life, every decision, every action, every event, every loss, every gain, every blessing, every pain Somehow fit into a grand and good and wise divine plan What if you really believe that? What if you believe that there's really no such thing as chance, no random events, no accidents, no not fate But rather that all things down to the smallest detail were designed and ordained and planned and intended by a loving and generous and sovereign God who wanted to accomplish something beneficial both in your life and in the world at large What if you embraced these ideas with all your heart and all your soul? Would your life change? Would you live differently from how you're living today? Would you be less anxious, less worried, more at peace with yourself as well as with other people? When people cross you or when things don't go your way, you don't like what's happening, would you be more likely to accept those things as gifts from God? Rather than as mistakes or rather than as someone's cruel joke and played upon you, I think so And what if you knew that this God who controls all things, superintendents all things, plans all things, loves you Loves you with a love like no other, a love that is sure and unchanging and unconditional A love that doesn't give up on you when you fail, a love the love of father that you never had and always long for The love of a God who is absolutely and eternally delighted to call you his child, his bride, his treasured possession His delight, what if you believed all that about God? If you knew it, would it change your life, would it change the way you live today? This week, the rest of this year, of course it would, absolutely it would, it would have to And for some of you that I'm talking about, or talking to this morning, it would be a complete paradigm change It would be a new way to look at God, to look at yourself, look at your family, look at your friends, your church, your world, your work, your school What I'm talking about this morning, as I spoke to the children, is the doctrine of predestination Ooh, predestination, now that's a Presbyterian word, isn't it? But no, you heard it twice, as the Bible was read It's a biblical word Let's look again at Ephesians 1, look at verses 3 through 6, and let's get our bearings in and we'll go It says in verse 3, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us In the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ Now he's going to begin to enumerate these spiritual blessings And that's what we're going to be doing the next seven weeks Spiritual blessings, what's the first one? Verse 4, he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be wholly and blameless in his sight And in love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and his will to the praise of his glorious grace which he has freely given us in the one he loves I want to say three things this morning about predestination, first what it means, then what it doesn't mean, and finally how it can change your life So let's dive in first to what it means What is this fancy word predestination that I've already mentioned a little bit to the children? Well, let's start broad, and then we're going to bring it into more of a sharp focus Predestination means in its broadest sense that before there was a universe, before there was a world, before there was history, before there was a you and a me and an us God had everything planned out ahead of time He had a blueprint in his mind He had a strategy that governed every event in history that would ever happen from the least to the greatest Look at verse 11, and you see it again, this word predestination, verse 11 says in him, he's talking about Christ, we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will Now let's focus on the last part of that verse first He says that there's a plan that God has in which he works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will He did it because he wanted to do it, in other words Notice that my translation has added the word out It says that he works out everything but actually in the literal Greek the word out doesn't appear So literally he says he works everything When I think of working out something, it's like here's a mess that I need to get into and fix And that's not the sense of this He works everything He has a strategy, he has a plan Everything you want to ask? Everything? Yeah, everything Nothing happens outside the design or the decree of God says that verse There's not one stray molecule anywhere in the universe that is out there operating outside of God's sovereign will I love how Charles Spurgeon dealt with this subject Charles Spurgeon was a Baptist preacher back in the 1800s And he was talking about the dust that's in the air You know how you're in the house and a beam of sunlight streams through a window and suddenly you see all the dust that you're breathing in constantly All these dust particles that are floating around in your room He said about those he said everyone is keeping his position its position and moving through the air at God's appointment Every particle of dust, Jesus said something similar in Matthew chapter 10 He spoke about sparrows and he says that a sparrow does not fall to the ground apart from the will of our father This means that somewhere in a jungle in Africa right this moment a leaf is falling from a tree to the forest floor at the command of God Because his plan governs everything I love the movie 127 hours I spoke about it a few weeks ago In that movie it's about it's true story about a fellow by the name of Aaron Ralston played by James Franco Who goes out hiking in a canyon in Utah and manages to get his arm stuck in a crevice by a boulder And you can watch that and see what happened Well in this movie there is a spectacular explanation of predestination Here are the words of Aaron Ralston in that movie He says he's sitting there his arm is lodged in between this boulder and the canyon wall for five days he's in there 127 hours And here's what he said he said you know I've been thinking everything just comes together I chose this I chose all this this rock this rock has been waiting for me my entire life It's entire life ever since it was a bit of meteorite a million billion years ago in space It's been waiting to come here right here I've been moving towards it my entire life The minute I was born every breath that I've taken every action has been leading me to this crack on the out surface He beautifully whether he knows it or not is expressing the truth about predestination He was right and the Apostle Paul says pretty much the same thing in Romans chapter 11 he said there for from him that is God And through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever never I'm in In other words everything comes from the Lord That's predestination in its biggest sense For example God predetermines the length of your life do you know that says in Psalm 139 all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be Keep going to exercise classes keep eating right keep taking care of yourself keep sleeping okay and stuff like that But at the end of the day your life has been predetermined in terms of its length by God as part of his plan God the Bible says determines or controls or governs national elections right in a year we're going to come up to a major election here in our country Right now the candidates are already doing their campaigning and that's all well and that's good they should do that But Daniel 221 says that it's really up to God says he changes times and seasons he sets up kings and deposes them So it's part of God's plan it's predetermined part of predestination And one of the biggest things that we labor over in our minds is the problem of evil now that's a whole nother sermon It would you know a whole nother series maybe a whole nother lifetime how does evil fit into the plan of God Well the Bible speaks very confidently that it does mysteriously fit into the decree of God And we can talk about that sometime but you know why I'm confident that that's true It's because God decreed the most evil deed that has ever been perpetuated upon the planet called earth namely the death of his own son It was already predetermined that Jesus Christ would be betrayed into the hands of sinners that he would be tortured That he would be trumped up with charges that he would be killed on a cross It was all part of God's decree it says in the book of Acts where Peter is preaching on the day of Pentecost He's preaching to his fellow Jewish audience and says this man Jesus was handed over to you notice this by God's set purpose and for knowledge And you with the help of wicked men put him to death by nailing him to the cross Now look in that one verse you have this what some people call a paradox what some people call an antinomy It's those two truths that exist side by side God's sovereignty and our responsibility God's sovereignty God set purpose and for knowledge it was part of his decree that Jesus would be the victim of an unjust cruel death Our responsibility we hammered the nails but it was a part of God's decree So God sovereignly for ordains every event in the universe and now we get to the focused part of this And that includes your salvation That includes your salvation if you're a Christian this morning it's ultimately because God chose you to be his child He wanted to make it sure that you would become a member of his family and so he predestined you to become his child This is what our chapter teaches says in verse 4 he shows us in Christ before the creation of the world This goes right along with many other verses we're going to look at for example in Romans chapter 8 it says for those God for new And that means that he set his love ahead of time upon he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son And in John chapter 15 Jesus speaking to his disciples saying you did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit What this means friends is that you matter to God long before he mattered to you Doesn't that just melt your heart? The idea that you mattered to God long before he mattered to you long before you even existed long before you made any choices long before you did anything good or bad You matter to him This is also known by the way as the doctrine of election you might have heard that term it's all throughout the Old Testament Election whom did God elect out of all the nations of the earth in the Old Testament era? Israel right it says in Deuteronomy chapter what is it seven the Lord your God has chosen you you Israel to be a people for his treasure possession out of all the peoples out on the face of the earth God looked down at his earth and he said I want you Israel and you must know that it wasn't because of anything good that they had done In fact Israel's history was one of nothing but a lot of mistakes and yet God in his sovereign grace chose Israel to be his treasure possession And it's in the New Testament too all over in first Peter chapter two we who are in the church are called a chosen people a royal priesthood a holy nation a people belonging to God And in second Timothy chapter one it says that he saved us and called us to a holy life why not because of anything good we've done but because of his own purpose and grace This grace was given us in Christ before the beginning of time the biblical teaching is that the whole human race deserved the wrath and curse of God because of our sin And God would have been just and good to have turned away from us and let us all go our merry way to hell but instead of that he reached down in his mercy to sinful humanity and elected a people to be his very own That's what predestination means now let's add some caveats and some qualifications what does predestination not mean for things First of all it does not mean that you play no role at all in your salvation does not mean that you do play a role in order to be saved you know you've got to do you must believe in Jesus Christ You must turn from your sins and run to the crucified one you must put your hope and trust in Christ and what he did on the cross in his resurrection for you in order for you to have a relationship with God You see this even here in Ephesians chapter 1 look at with me at verse 13 and verse 13 Paul says that you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation having believed you were marked in him with a seal the promised Holy Spirit You see the condition there is that you believe in Christ in order to be saved so hear me well this morning if you do not repent turn from your sins and put your trust in Christ you cannot and will not be saved You will not have a relationship with God that saves you from your sins no faith in Christ is a necessary condition of salvation but here's the deal here's the beautiful part of it after you believe and after you are saved and forgiven of your sins you know what you come to understand that God was at work in you before you put your faith in him You do you see that oh my goodness I am such a sinner I'm so outside Christ he had to come in me first and begin to work in me before I could respond to him first John 4.19 says it very clearly we love because he first loved us there's a him that I love sometimes to sing that goes like this I sought the Lord and afterward I knew he moved my soul to seek him seeking me it was not I that found oh save your true no I was found of the the second thing that predestination does not mean is that doesn't mean that you make no real choices does not mean that you make no real choices you do you're making free choices all the time you remember Aaron Ralston the guy that was in the canyon he chose to go hiking in that canyon that day he chose that crevice to go walking down when you walked in here this morning in this room nobody forced you to I guess nobody forced you to sit in the chair that you're sitting in right now you made a free choice of that you're a moral agent you're not a puppet on a string you have the power and the freedom to make choices and these choices are significant you're doing it constantly but here's the deal you can only choose what you have the power to do you cannot will the impossible I've always wanted to be a bird I would love it yesterday we saw outside our house a bald eagle flying around our backyard I would love to be a bird I would love to fly like that love to be a hawk that be my first choice but I cannot do that I cannot will the impossible and the same is true with our salvation because the Bible says that it's impossible for an unregenerate and that means you're still outside Christ person to choose to follow Christ on his or her own we're dead in our trespasses and sins the Bible says when we're born we're dead a dead person cannot choose Christ it would be like me trying to fly like a bird it's just impossible so in order for a person to trust Christ God has to resurrect them from the dead as it were he has to bring them to life and that's what we call regeneration being born again you've probably heard that phrase and Paul says here in Ephesians 1 that God and his mercy and his grace chooses some people to be saved he awakens them from the dead unites them to Christ and they respond freely in faith we're not universalists you see we do not believe that everybody gets that that everybody goes to heaven the Bible speaks very clearly that there is a hell and some people go there the third thing that predestination does not mean is that it doesn't mean that you have no responsibility to tell people about Jesus so it does not mean that you do have a responsibility to share your faith in Jesus Christ and tell them the good news you may someday run into a person who claims to believe in predestination who says something like this well God's going to save whom he's going to save and it really he doesn't need my help so I'm not going to bother to tell people about Christ besides I can't do it very well anyway so you might run into somebody like that and that's a perversion of the truth God not only for ordains the ends he for ordains the means what do I mean by that I mean that God has not only determined who will be saved but how they will be saved and the Bible says very plainly that they will be saved through the hearing of the gospel it's your job and it's mine it's ours as a church to tell people about Jesus Christ the fourth and final thing that predestination does not mean it does not mean that God and this is so important I hope you get this because I may be speaking to somebody today even who is here today and wonders if God loves you wonders if you're a Christian wonders if you've checked all the boxes jump through all the hoops wonders if you're really forgiven I want you to know very plainly that predestination does not mean that God will keep somebody out of his family who desperately wants to be in that family again you might run across somebody who has a very arrogant view of these truths and who says that God sort of maintains a list you know and he says I want him and her and him and her and then here's John Doe over here who says God I really want to be forgiven I need to be forgiven I feel the weight of my sin and guilt and I need you to die for me I need to be in your family and God looks at his list and says well John Doe I'm sorry you're not here forget it you know that is not that's also a perversion of the truth no because in the Bible we're told very clearly that anyone who seeks to be forgiven anyone who desires a relationship with God will never be forbidden in fact Jesus himself said it this way in Matthew 11 come to me all all of you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest there's nothing that delights our father more than forgiving people who are broken and wounded and weary and sinful he also said in John 6 all that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I'll never drive away so if this morning you're sitting there thinking you know I really do want to know God and I hope I've done it all I hope I've done right I've turned for my sins I do believe he died on the cross then receive his promise he'll give you rest he wants you in fact that's a very sign that you are one of the elect see we don't know who is and who is it is not our job to know as we move out from here today we should see every person we meet as a potential elect person because God loves sinners well finally let me wrap up with a few things I know we're late but let me give you three things of practical application how does the doctrine of predestination change your life it'll make you humble it'll make you heroic and it'll make you happy it'll make you humble because you realize you know there's so much about God that I do not understand and here's one of them if this morning you're asking me questions in your mind like Mike why don't you explain this why don't you explain that I'll probably say I don't know how to explain that God's sovereignty human responsibility how do those fit together I'm not totally sure they're just both true and if you ask me that most perplexing of questions why doesn't God choose everybody I'm going to say I don't know but when I start thinking about God predestining people the question that I kind of want to ask God is why did you choose me to me that's a better question for us to ask you think I'm a nice person I'm not a nice person there's a lot of junk in this heart I've got a long way to go I'm a math most of the time you just don't know it and to think that God chose me really amazes me so this doctrine keeps you humble secondly it'll make you heroic what do I mean I don't mean cocky and arrogant I mean bold and daring because if if God has his people out there then it really doesn't matter if I share the Gospel poorly I just need to do the best I can I can stumble with my words I can do a horrible job of evangelism I don't have that gift I'll tell you that right now but I can still speak about Jesus and it'll work because God's already at work in these people so I can be heroic and so can you so can we let's be a heroic church because we believe in predestination it'll free us from all worry and make us bold and thoroughly it'll make you happy happy to think that God delights in you you know really everything I've said today can be boiled down to a very simple concept God loves you because he loves you and he always has and he always will yesterday I was struggling to figure out how can I make this kind of personal to you and I felt like God said show them a picture so you'll have to indulge me here's a picture of one of my grandchildren I haven't shown you pictures of my grandkids in a long time okay so give me a break but this little girl is Talisa my wife and I will see her later today we're going up to Tallahassee and that's my son David dancing with my granddaughter look at her delight look at her freedom look at her security and you can't see David's face but he's smiling he loves her so much you are God's treasured possession he delights in you he dances around you he wants to spend eternity with you and that's why he chose you let's pray father it's amazing to me it's amazing to us that you would do this we praise you that you've chosen us out of all of the world before the creation of the world not because we offered anything to you in fact we drove the nails into your hands thank you for delighting in us Lord would you please take this truth and make it real that it will humble us that it will make us heroes of the faith and that it will make us happy the most happy people on the face of the earth in Jesus name Amen